Bossy Monologue

            You can’t wear your favorite socks with the orange butterflies because you’ll get them muddy, and then they won’t be your favorite socks anymore, now will they?  I’ve told your grandmother to put some carpet tiles down on the ground from now on if you’re going to insist on playing outside.  Don’t you think that’s a good idea?  I don’t want to spend my entire Saturday scrubbing stains out of your clothes because you don’t know how to act like a little lady.  Only boys play in the mud.  I’m not sure why you like it.  Do you think it’s attractive to go around in clothes with mud stains all over them?  No, you can’t spend the night with your friends this weekend.  We’re too busy to go to that birthday party.  I think that it would be best if just you and I went to the movies together.  I don’t know why you always want to bring one of your friends.  Am I not good enough for you?  You see your friends at school all week.  Don’t you think it’s fair if you spend your weekends with me?  Your sister called.  She wanted to take you swimming.  I told her we had too many things going on this week.  It’s not a “coke”.  It’s a “soda.”  Don’t say “tote.”  The “t” in “often” is silent.  Do you want people to think you’re ignorant.  You can’t wear those shoes.  It’s after Labor Day.  Those are your church gloves.  Don’t play with them.  If you walk like that, you’ll scuff your shoes.  Don’t slouch.  Be careful with that seatbelt.  You’ll wrinkle your dress.  I didn’t spend forty minutes last night ironing it so that you could wrinkle it within the first ten seconds that you put it on; besides, what will people think if I let you walk into the church looking like you slept in it?  We are not white trash.  If I let you go to school without a hair bow, people will think that I don’t care what you look like.  It doesn’t matter that you like your hair down.  Don’t tell people that I put curlers in your hair.  Tell them that it’s naturally curly.  How do you always tear your panty hose?  If you wouldn’t run you wouldn’t fall.  Do you think it’s attractive to have big holes in your hose and blood running down your leg?  I don’t care that you’re friends are shaving their legs already.  Only trashy girls start shaving their legs before they’re in high school.  If you’re that worried about it, then you can just wear pants and long dresses until you’re old enough.  Don’t you think that dress is too tight?  I don’t know why you wanted me to buy it.  That shirt makes your arms look fat.  Do you think boys like girls with fat arms?  It’s disgusting to watch those boys follow you around after church while I talk to the other ladies.  It makes you look like a dog in heat with a pack of mongrels behind you.  Do you think that’s attractive?  You should have stayed in pre-law.  You would have met a boy who knows where he’s going in life.  What kind of man do you think you’re going to meet while getting an English degree?  Don’t you want somebody to take care of you?  What will the neighbors think if you come home that late?  I wish you had been a boy, then I wouldn’t have to worry about what other people think about what you’re doing.    Why don’t you spend more time with the preacher’s son?  I know you’re engaged, but nothing lasts forever.  You might love him now, but you’ll get tired.  You should find somebody who will be able to provide for you.  No, that doesn’t make you a legitimate whore.  Don’t you think you’re being a little ridiculous?  You think you know what life is all about, but idealism is for the young.  You need to find out about his family’s health record before you start having children with him.  Do you want to have a child with birth defects?  Don’t you ever regret that you’re pregnant already?  Think about all of the things that you’ll never get to do now?  That baby will make a divorce more complicated.  I’m not sure why you want to put so much money in this house?  Wouldn’t it be better to just buy a bigger one?  Sometimes I don’t understand the decisions that you make or how you could be the child that I raised.