Pretty Is as Pretty Does

By Kim Hayes

My mother and I are sitting in her living room, talking about what I can’t remember. Out of nowhere, she says, “You know, Kim, you would be so much prettier with contacts. Why don’t you wear them anymore? I’ll pay for them.”

It is the fall of 2017 and I’m in New Orleans for one of my yearly visits. I grew up in New Orleans and fly down from Chicago every fall for a few days. These yearly visits is my time away from the real world and work. It’s a much needed ‘me’ time where I don’t have any responsibility. I can do what I want whenever I want. 

I should be used to these barbs by now. For all of my life, my mother has done nothing but criticize and judge me about everything I’ve ever done or said and on every decision I have made. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I was failing, again, to live up to her narrow-minded world of how I’m supposed to behave or look. 

I have several options. None of which address the actual issue. I can opt to be snippy and rip her a new one for the pretty comment. That is ruled out because I’ll just end up dropping f bombs, and she cannot stand hearing what she calls such vulgar and uncouth language. I can call her out on the hurtfulness of the pretty comment. I ruled out this as well, as she’ll just insist she didn’t mean it that way. Which she did. She’ll get mad that I’m calling her out on her behavior.

I choose to go with what is behind door number 3. I smile, nod and mumble something about contacts that don’t give me 20/20 vision anymore. 

None of these choices will have a good ending. We will end up in a shouting match, she will dig through her mental ‘What to criticize Kim about’ Rolodex and find something that I’ve done recently (or more likely years ago) that she didn’t approve of, twist it around and throw it back in my face. She’s a pro at that. No matter what I say or how I say it, she won’t listen and won’t give me a chance to defend myself. Sometimes conversations such as this end up with me close to tears. Then a few hours later she’s all pearl clutching with “I’m sorry I didn’t mean it to sound that way, I just care about what people will think of you.” What she is really saying is that she is much more concerned about what people will think of her and that she has found yet another thing to judge and criticize me for. She will never let this go and will bring it up again in the future. 

So I chose my words carefully, explaining AGAIN, how messed up my eyesight is, that with aging, as I am in full-blown menopause, and my vision isn’t what it used to be. Contacts do nothing but give me a splitting headache after a few hours. I remind her I was never a suitable candidate for LASIK. It will go over her head as to the reasons. What she will focus on is from the entitled viewpoint of why I can’t be what she always wanted me to be. Her perfect princess. Someone she can mold in her narrow world vision that she lives in. 

My mother clutched her preverbal pearls and muttered under her breath about how I’d be prettier without glasses. She will not let this go. I know then that she will file this moment away in that mental Rolodex and, in a couple of years, will pull out this conversation to use against me when I’ve done something else ‘wrong’.  

It angers me because how dare I am not pretty enough for her! She’s much more concerned about how people will think of her. That I live nine hundred miles away means nothing. Everything I do reflects on her and if I’m not her perfect daughter, then it’s all my fault. She cannot understand why I don’t share her views or why I don’t try to ‘keep up with the Jones’ like she does. 

I can change the subject to making her laugh over the silly customer service stories I have from all my years working in retail and food service. For now, that will have to do. I will feel hurt and angry, but I can’t show it and even after all these years, I don’t have the balls to stand up to her. 

On the surface, the conversation will fade from memory by the next day, and I will carry on with my visit home, indulging in more seafood and spending time with friends. But it will sit there in the back, waiting to come up when called.  

Kim lives and works in Chicago, IL. She works for the Chicago Cubs. She has been writing for a couple of years and some of her work has been published recently in Nifty Lit, Roi Faineant, and Epater.