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I’m not sure why this thought crossed my mind a day or so ago, but I was wondering how my maternal grandmother would have reacted if I expressed a desire to dress as a girl.
I think it may have come up in one way or another, even before I realised how much it was something I wanted to do because I had long hair at several points in my life. On the other hand, it was one of these times when I was asked about the idea of going as some kind of girl as a costume came up and she mentioned a time a boy her age did that and got arrested (probably mid-late 1940s). That shook me and was one of the first major drives to repress this part of myself.
My conclusion is that in the end I think she would have loved and encouraged it, but there may have been some negativity up front. My mother is an only child who only had boys and a somewhat poor relationship with her mother. In her last days, my grandmother made it very clear that I was the only person left in her family she really trusted and I admitted I felt the same about her without the privilege of having had others who had passed. I think she wanted a girl in her life and would have been happy to have me be that. Being from her place and time, she was lucky enough to be in a position where certain old-fashioned, now very outdated ideas looked positive even with a critical perspective like hers, but I think she saw me as someone who could do no wrong. Something she might dismiss as being for “deviants” or some other kind of group she would dismiss would be all right for me because she knew I checked out.
I am certain though she would have told me not to tell my mother for the sake of ruining *both* of our fun. I know my grandfather wouldn’t like it, but I don’t think he would make the situation worse.
It would have been a lot to admit, but I wish I had done it. I would have had the best wardrobe of any girl around, that’s for sure!
As for my paternal grandmother, I am sure it would have been disapproval, but positive or negative it was always cold and detached. Ultimately a neutral I would only even think about in comparison.
Grandmothers have a different way about them when it comes to this. So many drag queens are especially close with theirs. I’m sure most of us here have lost theirs by now, but what would they think? Do you wish they knew your feminine side?
Grandmothers do have a different way, I agree. For some (but unfortunately not all) with age comes perspective on living life as who you are and what makes you happy. My paternal grandmother would have been scandalized had she known but I am convinced that if there is such a thing as a guardian angel it is her and no one else. When a good thing happens, or something that could have been bad doesn’t, and the coldness of math and probability seem too plain in view of the consequences, she is the one whose influence I feel–the one who tapped me on the shoulder before my mom almost caught me, for instance! I love to think that freed of the limitations of the human body and mind, one could see beauty in all things and forms of expression, that we are not sophisticated enough in life to perceive.
She was Sicilian, so as a firstborn grandson there was almost no wrong that would put me beyond redemption. My maternal grandmother would have said terrible, terrible things, but laced in a way that would let you know you hadn’t lost her love. My mother and sisters inherited her personality. The one most like her would be the first I’d tell.
I love Philma’s assessment: minus a seriously negative haunting, I will also take that as support!!!
I don’t really remember my maternal grandparents.
My paternal grandmother scolded me one day because I crossed my legs like a girl, and told me not to cross my legs that way. I don’t know if this is the cause, but by now I am not all that flexible and find it difficult to cross my legs one thigh on the other unless I am reclining a bit. Too often I either have to pull the leg into position or my bottom knee presses on the upper leg vein causing my foot to fall asleep.
Besides, I only had short times when I was younger to be able to dress. Sharing a room with 2 brothers and having an older sister and a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t have a lot of alone time.
I never really considered telling my mother, whom I was much closer to. And I certainly felt a lot of shame about it at the time and for many many more years. So no, I don’t think I would have told my grandmother.
My paternal grandmother was deeply religious, and I think she would have wanted nothing more to do with me had she found out about this part of me. On the other hand, I have always felt like there was a lot going on with that side of my family that was never talked about. Just one example… she had a sister who she was very close with all their lives. That sister never married… it’s possible she “just never found the right man..” It was really unusual for someone not to marry in their days, yet they were still really close. So it’s possible people’s attitudes towards things may not be what you might think. I never would have gotten to tell her about me most likely, but it is interesting to think about.
As for my maternal grandmother, she was less religious but still very conservative. Maybe the most traditional member of my whole family. I think she would have been even less likely to accept this part of me.
Well anyway. I haven’t been haunted yet either, so maybe both their reactions would have surprised me 🙂
I have poltergeist activity, so no they would not have approved. And still don’t. I love my parents to death they’re both angels. Well not literally they both still alive. But when I was young and my parents found one of my panties stashes, my father who is a great guy and I love him to death used that deviant term with me then. That messed me up for a while I’m over it but I’m still not going to tell my parents even though they know their in a different perspective altogether than I have.
Any possible relationship I would have had with my maternal grandmother ended before I was even born. Mom got pregnant with my older sister in 1955 when she was 16. THAT just did not happen to good Christian families back then, (not a knock to anyone’s religion, but a line I heard many times from certain family members) and was sent to live with relatives out of town, and when she wouldn’t give up my sis for adoption, was basically cut out of her mother’s life. I came along in ’59, and that just ‘put the icing on the cake’, so to speak.
Mom was a free spirited kind of woman and never married either sis’s father or mine, so we never knew that side of where we came from, it took us years to even find out their names. We were mom’s ‘love children’ she did her best to raise us and provide. It probably would have been easier with her parent’s more involved as they were quite wealthy from what I know of them. But we made it.
So, from what I have been told by older family members that have accepted me as I am, my grandmother would likely have had me exercised by a priest if she had found out about Paula, or at least committed to some kind of juvenile facility until I was ‘normal’. And, now I know, I always was.
PaulaF
I don’t think my grandmother would have liked it but my mother didn’t have a problem with me dressing as a woman 💋
No! When I think back, I remember my relationship with my mom and my grandparents was mostly adversarial – not related to Dressing (Bettylou wasn’t aware then), but with almost everything else.
Hi Paula,
I was a teen ‘way back then, and your story is spot-on. I knew of several girls who were sent out of town for a year to stay with relatives or in foster homes. And an equal number of young men were suddenly filled with a patriotic urge to join the army. Gurls like us didn’t even exist then, either, and could be jailed if we did.
Both sets of grandparents died before I was born.My father never told me any stories about his mother but my mum told me plenty of stories about her mother.If she was still alive when I was born I don’t think she would have be too happy to have a grandson who wanted to dress like a girl.My mother would never have tolerated it.She was born in 1921 and firmly believed that boys should be boys.I had excellent,caring parents who looked after me and my two older brothers well.However,my mum used to tell me that they wouldn’t tolerate any sissies.I am quite sure that they would not have disowned me but my parents wouldn’t tolerate my crossdressing.I think she would have marched me off to our family doctor.Ironically, when my mother was expecting me she wanted a girl as she already had two boys.I find that quite significant.Proof that I was meant to be a girl.I was blessed with lovely curly hair which I am happy to say,I still have in abundence at the age of sixfy.
All four of my grandparents were gone before my 21st birthday, and my paternal grandmother before my 10th, so I barely knew her (her husband died before I was even born). I have always felt that my two brothers and I were close to our maternal grandparents, spending significant summer vacations (1 or more months) with them in a northwoods cabin, and I’d like to think that my grandmother would have been considerate and at least listened to me. She like my other 3 grandparents had gone through some rough times, the 2 world wars, the great depression, (where 3 or the 4 lost their jobs or worked for no pay for a year or more) so they were no doubt used to adversity, used to disappointment, and I would think, used to being appreciative of the struggles of others .
But as I was to learn later, both my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandparents favored – rather distinctly as I now look back from the advantage of adulthood, as well as from discussions with my mother and my brothers – on the other sibling, my father’s younger brother and my mother’s older sister. So even tho we saw them regularly, I do have to wonder how they really saw my two brothers and me.
What I did learn and have tried to put into practice is to be as attentive, understanding and loving as I can be to my now four grandchildren, which has been a challenge since both sets live more than 1000 miles away.
I might have told my dad’s mother, she was a polical conservative, but a social liberal, with many friends who were “different “, but my maternal grandmother was raised by her maternal grandmother, a lady born in Georgia in 1867, and raised staunch southern baptist. She loosened up some later in life, but anything “unnatural “ was just not done or spoken of
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