Our family wasn't wealthy, but we weren't poor either. In fact, looking back now, I can see where we were actually a lot better off than most of my friends, although I never knew it then. I don't know if many can relate to how I felt about myself as I was growing up, some don't, and I really don't know where the feelings stemmed from, but for some reason, I always felt inferior around my friends. I do know that one reason I felt this way when as I got older was because I had to wear homemade clothes to school, when all of my friends were wearing name-brand clothes. Even though my mother was an excellent seamstress, and everything she made for me fit me perfectly, for some reason, just because I didn't have the "tags" on my clothes, I felt they weren't as good. Perhaps one of the other kids at school made a comment about it at some point, I don't remember.

Another reason that I felt this way was because we lived in the country instead of living in town. Later on, my sister told me that she also felt this way growing up. Somewhere along the line, someone instilled the thought into our heads that "country people" weren't as good as the "city people". It's really strange that we felt this way, since our family owned hundreds of acres, and the only thing that we ever owed for was our cars, and most of my friends that lived in town either lived in apartments, or rented houses that were a lot smaller than the one that we had.

When I was in school, I don't remember my mother ever helping me with my homework, or ever really getting involved with my education. I was never encouraged to join any of the clubs or school organizations. I don't remember ever being praised for my good grades, although I do remember the tongue lashings I got for the bad ones. By the time I entered junior high, my grades were really bad, and I ended up failing the seventh grade.

I suppose it was partially caused by rebellion, but I think part of it was that I just didn't care about school. I had a good friend that was known for her promiscuity and being with her all the time did a lot of damage to my own reputation. Of course I was curious about everything that was going on around me, boys, sex, drinking, and everything else that goes on in a teenagers life. I could have said drugs, but for some reason, I was never introduced to any type of drugs until much later on in my life, as far as I knew then, I know different now though, I didn't even know anyone that had anything to do with drugs. It just wasn't something that entered into my thoughts.

There were many times that I wished that I had the type of mother that I could sit down and talk things over with, but my mom was just not the type. I remember once when I was probably around ten or eleven, I asked my mother about sex and where babies came from. I had heard various stories from friends, and some of them really sounded outlandish to me. She left the room and returned a few minutes later with a paperback book, about a half inch thick, handed it to me and said, "Here, read this.", turned around and walked out. That was the end of that discussion. After she walked out, I looked at the book, and it looked old, I opened the front cover just to look for a date, and found one, 1938. Just a few years outdated, since it was then around 1965 or 1966. Needless to say, It didn't answer any questions for me and I never asked again.

I don't know why, but there's really very little that I do remember discussing with her. One thing that sticks out in my head though, is something that I remember her saying, I don't even know why the subject was brought up, what we were talking about, or why she even said it, but it has stuck with me and bothered me all these years. I even remember having nightmares about it.

I remember we were sitting at the kitchen table, she was playing solitaire, her usual pasttime, and she asked me, "If you and your husband and your child were in a boat and suddenly it turned over and for some reason you were the only one that was able to swim, and you knew that you could save one of them, which would you choose?" I don't remember my answer but I guess I'll always remember hers. She said, "You should save your husband, because you can always have more children."

Being her child, I guess, this made me think of my own mortality, and her own feelings toward it. I know that she wasn't being malicious when she said it, and perhaps she was just trying to pass along some sort of lesson to me, but unfortunatly, all she succeeded in doing was to belittle my own self-esteem.

This wasn't the only time that something was said that effected me this way. One good thing did actually come out of these seemingly innocent remarks though, I ended up being very careful of what I said to my own daughter as she was growing up, and never, or at least tried to never say anything to her or around her that would lower her self-esteem. In theory, I did the right thing, but it wasn't until much later on that I realized that my own mother had instilled something else in me that actually ended up causing me to defeat my own purpose.