Mom, You Were Right
May, 2008

From the day I was born, my mother was my nemesis: the standard against which I measured myself and found both of us wanting. Whatever she wanted me to be, I wasn’t–by nature, by nurture, by sheer dint of stubborn will. A quiet, well-behaved infant: nope. Until I was two years old, I awoke at ten each night, and then commenced to howl–inexplicably, inconsolably, at the top of my tiny but rapidly developing lungs–until my Felix-The-Cat cuckoo clock struck twelve. A quiet, well-behaved toddler, child, teenager: nope. Expelled from Little Miss Muffett’s Nursery School at age four, I went on to earn a long succession of failing grades in behavior, until finally I honed my rebellion to a fine point, and got myself expelled from high school. College? You’re kidding, right?

It was a holy war I was fighting, staking out a place for myself in my family, in the times-they-are-a-changin’ world. (Did I mention the year I would have graduated was 1968?) My mother was a smart, energetic, chomping-at-the-bit housewife. My life was dedicated to freeing myself from the shackles that bound her to the stove, to my father, to pre-feminist convention. Unsurprisingly, the battlefield upon which my crusade was waged was the family dining room.

My mother was determined to instill in her wild child the skills she thought I’d need, should I ever deign to enter polite society. Teaching me to eat "nicely" was high on her to-do list. Refusing to eat (or do anything else) nicely, therefore, was high on mine. Table manners became our territory in dispute. Every meal we ate together was a skirmish on the borderline.

1964: "Meredith." (My name a cannonball on her lips.) "Chew with your mouth closed."

(Snapped, open-mouthed:) "I am!"

"Keep your left hand in your lap."

(Quickly switching my fork from my right hand to my left.) "I’m practicing to be ambidextrous."

"Take your elbows off the table."

"They are!" I became a dinnertime acrobat, maneuvering my elbows just far enough from the table to keep my mother from withholding my dessert–and close enough to prove to both of us that she couldn’t tell me what to do.

1984: I’m driving my sons Peter, 5, and Jesse, 4, home from their first overnight stay with my mother–at age 57, a PhD and university professor. "Grandma makes us eat with our left hands in our laps," Jesse reports, sounding intrigued, as if Grandma had just taught them a new Pac Man move.

"She says we have terrible…" Peter reports, his lips stumbling over the unfamiliar phrase. "… table manners."

"Mommy," Jesse chimes in, his doe eyes wide in the rear-view mirror. "What’s table manners?"

Not that again, I think, instantly regressed to a fervor of adolescent rebellion. Disobeying my mother had made me the free spirit I was, the free spirits I wanted my sons to be. "There’s nothing terrible about you," I tell my children. "Don’t worry about it."

My mother called that night after Peter and Jesse’s bedtime. Peter and Jesse, of course, were still awake. I took the phone into my bedroom and closed the door. "Mom," I said nicely, "how was your time with the kids?"

"Wonderful," she said. "They’re both so funny and…creative. But we really need to work on their table manners."

Long, regressive silence.

"So they don’t embarrass themselves when they’re older," my mother added.

"I’m older," I argued. "And I’m not embarrassed."

Long, pregnant silence. I knew what she was thinking: You should be.

1994. I’ve just signed a contract for my first book, a memoir about my non-traditional family. My editor is coming to town. She wants to meet the kids, now 14 and 15. She wants to take us all out to dinner. In a restaurant. Where table manners count. Gulp.

"Boys," I say that night as we’re eating dinner, "Take your elbows off the table. Don’t eat with your hands."

Four stunned eyes fixate on me. "I don’t want you to embarrass yourselves," I say, feeling like a sell-out. I don’t want them to embarrass me, I admit to myself. My editor’s plans change and she cancels our dinner. I am drenched in relief.

2006: I’m having dinner in a restaurant with Jesse, now 26, and his fabulous fiancée, the aptly named Joy. Someone nudges my foot under the table. I peek at my son, expecting to exchange an "Isn’t she wonderful" look. Instead I catch a meaningful glance directed from Ms. Wonderful to my son. Clearly I intercepted a kick meant for him. Responding to Joy’s cue, he sits up straighter, takes his elbows off the table, and puts his left hand in his lap. When he chews, the contents of his mouth are invisible to the naked eye.

I am Custer at Little Big Horn. Napoleon at Waterloo. The sins of the mother have indeed been visited upon the sons. Chewing politely with my mouth closed, I swallow a bite of salad, along with my pride. I take my elbows off the table, put my left hand in my lap, and issue a silent apology. Sorry, Mom. You were right.