I had a pretty happy childhood without having to overcome anything too difficult. That is, until I reached 7th Grade and was enrolled in a large senior elementary school. My school district had several K-6 grade schools, one 7th-8th grade (senior elementary) school, and a 9th-12th grade high school. My K-6 school had only one 6th grade class. I went to school with most of the same classmates since Kindergarten. Now I was in a school that was so large that I didn’t share classes with any of my original classmates. I suddenly was unknown, and I felt I knew no-one.
As I looked around, I noticed that all of the popular boys wore Levi’s. The double-arches of stitching on the back pockets and the red “Levi’s” tag on the right rear pocket was like a badge of coolness to me. I also noticed that these same guys often wore white socks. During cool weather, they wore a brown corduroy jacket with two vertical pleats in the shoulder-blade area. I so wanted to wear these same clothes.
The problem was that my mother bought my clothes. She wanted her son to look like a fine young man and would pick out slacks and collared shirts and black or brown leather shoes. To compound my situation, I wore glasses. These glasses were also picked out by my mom. They were black horn-rimmed glasses because I was so rough on things, and she felt these might hold up better to rough play. They did hold up, as I still have them to this day. To top things off, so to speak, my dad cut my hair. The style in 1961, at least at my age, was long hair that was greased back on the sides, meeting at the back. The top usually was also long and combed over the top and blended into one of the sides. It helped if you had wavy hair. Well, my dad was a military man and he cut my hair as he always cut it…in a butch. I got him to cut it flat on top, and I used a wax paste to make it stand straight up. Once, I convinced him to let the sides and back to be longer, so I could comb it back on the sides and meet the hair combed down in the back. I still had the short flat hair on top. That look didn’t last long.
To help in the appearance arena, it seemed everyone had matured over the summer from sixth grade. All the girls had breasts and all the boys had beards, or so it seemed to me. I, however, wouldn’t mature until the summer between my 9th and 10th grade. That is an eternity to a young teenage boy.
As can be imagined, my self-esteem was pretty low. At the end of each summer, our mom would take all of us kids shopping for school clothes. This was the beginning of my conflicts with my mother. I didn’t mind too much to have my mom picking out my clothes when I was younger, but once I was an adolescent, I had my own ideas of what looked good on me and what was going to get me bullied.
This shopping trip became a point of real contention. She was on a budget, so when I finally convinced her that it just wasn’t cool to wear slacks, she consented to get me a pair of jeans. However, Sears didn’t sell Levi’s, so I ended up with Sears Brand jeans…not cool. She just didn’t get why I wanted Levi’s. I wasn’t able to get white socks, either. The closest I came was a pair of red socks. It wasn’t quite the same. I really wanted one of those corduroy coats, too, but that was too much money and unessential in my mom’s mind.
My mom and I would come home from those shopping trips exhausted and frustrated. I would be so unhappy with my clothes, and my mom just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to look nice. Six years later when my younger brother was faced with the same situation, they would come home, both just fuming. After a full day of conflict and arguing, they came home empty-handed. My reaction was, “What! You can do that? Not getting any clothes was an option?”
My self-esteem problem got a boost after joining the high school swim team and making new friends. I finally resolved my image issues in high school when I grew some pubic hairs. I also had a job and started buying my own clothes.
Life was much better my last few years of high school. I actually had fun, and I felt like I had my group of friends that I could eat lunch with and generally fit in. Adolescence is a challenging time in one’s life, and I was just so miserable. I can understand how life can get so tough and depressing that some want to just end it. I remember my mom telling me that this was just a rough spot in my life and that things would get better. It is hard to see that perspective when you are deep in the middle of being bullied and not having any friends. Unfortunately, some children find a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is just so hard to see that this situation in life is just temporary.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 