Tomboy

Gareth: Okay, so Rebecca, we just talked about kids and technology, and you asked me whether or not I should give a cellphone to my son.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Gareth: Now, I would like you to give me a little bit of advice for my daughter. I have a daughter, and she’s only seven months old, but I’m worried about when she’s older, when she gets a boyfriend, and when she has her first date, and when she’ll start wearing make-up, so could you kind of give me some advice about this?

Rebecca: Well, I think maybe I had a bit of an unusual experience. My mom actually made me wear make-up. When I got into high school, it was like — you know, in middle school, I was the kid with you know braces and glasses, stuck in a book, and my mom was like you can’t do that in high school, you ‘ll never meet anyone, so she took away my glasses and made me get contacts. And I couldn’t do anything about the braces, but you know, as long as you cover mouth or do something weird when you smile.

Gareth: Wow, that sounds quite the opposite to many of my friends, like they all wanted to wear make-up, and their parents wouldn’t let them.

Rebecca: No, I was a tomboy. My mom was actually kind of worried, like, she’s like, do you have any interest at all in girlie things. I was like, no, I don’t like shoes, I don’t like clothes, I don’t need a purse. I’ll just go climb a tree.

Gareth: So, do you think it’s important as a parent to steer your children to like kind of sculpt them, and make them into more rounded people, or do you think you should just let them go?

Rebecca: At the time, I think I actually resented my mom for it, cause like she waxed my eyebrows. My mom removed my eyebrows. She sat me down and was like ‘you have a unibrow that is not acceptable’ and she pinned me down and ripped them out, and I screamed and I hated her for weeks.

Gareth: Wow, how old were you when she did that?

Rebecca: It was the end of middle school sometime. But middle school, high school, somewhere in that area.

Gareth: So like fifteen?

Rebecca: Fifteenish, yeah. I didn’t shave either. My mom actually shaved my legs the first time. She was like you need to shave this now.