And that was the last time….
I no longer shop with my daughters when they are both on a mission to acquire something. I did so many times in years past and the last time I did, I just plain put my foot down, said no more and I’ve stuck to it….that’s been probably 3 or 4 years ago now.
Many years ago when the girls were about 12 or so…they began to carry their sister drama and jealousy of one another into the shopping experience. Once on a family vacation I went with them to a clothing outlet store in Colorado. I had seen glimpses of this before, but what would usually -happen is our daughter “the pleaser” would try things on that were trendy but bless her heart invariably too small. The good news is that she had moved from big old over sized floppy sloppy T-shirts to cute stuff. Thing is that she was a little chunky in those days and there was a good deal of sensitivity and tact required to steer her toward cute clothes that fit and flattered her while at the same time not discourage her or hurt her feelings. Her sister “Cheer girl” lacked both of those skills. So since the girls were not only sisters but same age students, the “pleaser” would honestly ask for her sister’s opinion and that would often be met with rolled eyes, smart alec hurtful comments or the oh so annoying highly dismissive “it’s fine”. I hated witnessing this. I would just want to strangle “cheer girl” and by the same token I couldn’t understand why “pleaser” would keep asking the opinion of someone who obviously found pleasure in hurting her feelings. So I would usually swoop in and try to save the situation.
This started early on. When these guys were little girls, and we’d go school clothes shopping with them…pre”cheer girl” would just take something off the rack, put it on and it would fit…but she was picky as heck…it took hours for her to decide on 3 outfits. The elastic wasn’t right….the color wasn’t right,,,it was too loose here, too tight there….it had two stitches instead of three….wrong color thread…it was enough to make you want to run out in front of a moving vehicle I swear to God. Her sister would just struggle to find something age appropriate that fit well. When she’d ask her sister if she liked something she was thinking of trying on, most of the time all she would get was “no”. Not real nice and certainly not real helpful. Painful.
So each school year, and usually to some degree on summer vacations, we would go through this and I would rather eat mud…all it did through the years was escalate. Then at some point….I’d say at at about the age of 15 or so…”the pleaser” over compensated, became a martyr and just became nasty to shop with when her sister was along, most especially if there were any sort of cooperation required…like something for their room….it became whatever….let the Princess have what she wants… She gets everything she wants anyway…why ask me, my opinion doesn’t matter…there were times the Princess actually took some satisfaction in this…I could tell from her expression; other times she didn’t. However it was a bed she had made with her sister after years of peppering her with emotional spit wads….so there were times too when it was aggravating for her….but there was little to be done about it by then. I would just look at the martyr with exasperation and shrug my shoulders at the other.
So….die cast…..we happen to have moved into a new house and they each got a nice room out of the deal. Unfortunately for us the two rooms available were vastly different. After two weeks of fighting….”cheer girl” finally settled it by telling her sister to just take the larger of the two rooms and be done. Ok and thank you. Daughter two doesn’t really capitalize on having the bigger room from what I can tell…it was just something she won out over against her sister. It simply provides more floor space to cover with dirty clothes from what I can see ha! Now these rooms share a bath. So we had to decorate it. That meant each girl could choose a little rug for their side and they needed to select a shower curtain. Sounds simple enough right? So I take these girls to Bed Bath and Beyond. To spend my money ,to get them some nice things to decorate their new bathroom. They had not had their own bathroom before so I thought this would be a cool and fun thing to get to do. I shall not forget this trip as it was absolutely the last time I went shopping with the girls together. I have been shopping with them separately since then, but never again together. So we hit the rugs first and looked at the different colors they had and our oldest finds one she loves. So what does sister do? She turns into shopzilla and declares bathroom rugs to be stupid. She didn’t want one, didn’t want anything they had. I explained that bathroom floors get cold and it’s nice to be able to stand on something when you stand at your sink….that was stupid too. Ok. Fine, don’t get one and have cold feet. So then it comes to the shower curtain. Our youngest begrudgingly walks over to the display and starts to go through them. Obviously with one tub…they had to come together on this decision. No dice. Our oldest asked what her sister thought of one….and the girl lost her mind. Ugliest thing she’d ever seen, stupid…figures you’d like that one, its completely ridiculous…you get the idea…I had my fill at this point so I tried to disengage, leave them to make a decision and I sat in a chair off to the back of the store to wait. What happened next was just embarrassing. The girls got into a real doozy. In this one, it wasn’t picky pants who was being unreasonable in my opinion, i t was our new martyr. It was as if this girl had decided to unleash 5 years worth of pent up angst and anger right there over choosing a shower curtain. Everyone in the store heard them, it was awful. So I went to collect them, we went out to the car empty handed and I let them have it. I told them that I wasn’t sure what they lacked in their character that they weren’t embarrassed by their behavior in that store. That they would act that way toward each other at all was one thing, in front of God and everybody was to me just unbelievable and inexcusable. They were 16 years old for heaven’s sake. I told them that in my opinion their issues with each other were beyond normal sisterly tensions and that I was absolutely done. I told them that from that point forward their Stepmother would not be going shopping with them together ever again.
That was years ago. Though I have been in stores with them separately or together when only I was after something or when only one of them was looking for something or for their baby brother, I meant it…never again with them when they were both shopping. Only now at almost the age of 18 do I see some change occurring, giving each other opinions on things like when they shop on-line…so maybe one day…just not yet…jury’s still out for me!
Lessons learned
- A person can only be picked on for so long. When the table turns it can do so abruptly, irrationally and whether or not it’s in public can apparently be of no concern.
- If you have picked on someone for a time…you’d better be ready..because a person can only take so much…and it’s going to come back on you. You won’t know how or when…but I believe it will and it isn’t pretty.
- I, who have an inordinate amount of patience for most people, most of the time….can only take so much as well!
- I’m probably overly concerned with what people think. My roots are Southern and English so double whammy on that. My girl’s seem not to care at all and will show their back sides whenever they feel like it…..wherever they are. I’m aiming for a middle ground…..that would be nice!
Good Step Mom
