Free Aunt Erma's Cope Book by Erma Bombeck Page B

valet parking, I made a necklace out of her paper clips and chewed at my cuticles until they bled.
    By the time she told me his career tests showed his future lay in shepherding, I had used every bit of Body English in the book.
    It was useless to play games. She asked me if my son and I related to one another. I said nervously only through a young marriage. She said that wasn't what she meant. She was trying to establish what kind of a parent-child relationship we had.
    That's when it all came out. I told her none of my children understood parents my age. They talked to me but they never listened to what I had to say. They were always too busy. I stopped telling them anything because when I did I was always in for a lecture. They never took my side.
    They blamed me for everything. Never let me assume responsibility for things I could do myself. All they did was criticize. (I leaned forward.) I think they even spy on me. “Miss Lutz,” I said flatly, “they treat me like an adult.”
    She folded my son's manila folder and leaned back on her chair. “You're not the only parent who has problems with their children understanding them,” she said. “There's a wonderful new manual out called Bringing Up Parents the Okay Way. I don't know whether or not you can get your children to read it, but at least you'll get a better understanding of why they do and say the things they do.”
    I started to stand up.
    “Don't forger your feet,” cautioned Miss Lutz, nodding toward my legs still coiled around the legs of the chair. “That could be interpreted as some very strong Body English.”
    I smiled smugly. “I read a little Body English myself,” I said proudly. “As a matter of fact, while you've been observing me, I've been observing you. I have come to the conclusion you are an excellent teacher, secure, in command of a situation, and will be around here for a long time.”
    “Not really,” she said, easing herself out of the chair. “I'm eight months pregnant and am going on maternity leave next week.”
    Some bodies are very deceptive.
     

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    11
    bringing up parents the okay way
    the TROUBLE with my kids is they had read too many books on Parent Psychology. They thought they knew all the answers, but the truth is they didn't know me at all.
    They corrected my grammar in front of my friends, told me my clothes were too young for me, bugged me about my short hair, and never tried to relate to my problems.
    God knows, I had problems. I wasn't popular and wasn't with the “in” group. The in group in my neighborhood were women my age who had reentered the job scene. Every morning, I watched them from my window as they swung to their cars dressed in contemporary clothes and teetering in five-inch heels to their day in carpetland.
    From my vantage point, I could only fantasize how they answered phones that weren't sticky, had lunch in a place with live plants, and talked to people who didn't respond with the same two words, “far out.”
    The high spot in my week was being invited to a luncheon style show where I pilfered five or six sample vials of perfume that lasted five or six minutes before the alcohol burned off.
    The friends I liked my children weren't crazy about. They didn't like Yvonne, who was divorced and dated their former orthodontist, because they thought she was a bad influence on me.
    They didn't like Gloria, who always came over at dinnertime and hung around while we ate, because she never seemed to have a home of her own.
    And they didn't like Judy, who never cleaned her house and schlepped around in grubby clothes and greasy hair. (They said they had NEVER seen her cleaned up and she set a bad example for me.)
    Sometimes I didn't know what the kids expected from me. When I needed them, they were never home.
    When they were home they drove me crazy trying out their latest in parent-psychology techniques. I could always tell when they had a new theory they were trying out. I had their undivided