Did My Mother Make Me Weird?

In conversation on film, movies will come up such as Commando or Nightmare on Elm Street or Rambo III, and I will casually mention that I have not seen these movies, usually to the horror of whomever I'm talking to at the moment. Their constant refrain: "How can you not have seen these movies?"

The simple answer is that they were rated R before 1996. And my mother kept a firm clamp on my media consumption before I was about 18. I vividly remember purchasing with birthday money Weird Al Yankovic's "Fat" on a Friday and listening to is straight through that weekend. Monday came and by the time I had come home from school, the tape had disappeared from the stereo, box and all. I looked for it everywhere, but never did find it. It was like the tape had never existed at all.

This happened again and again with books, tapes, and CDs throughout my childhood. A t-shirt with a vampire on it. Gone. My copy of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Disappeared. Interview With a Vampire was left in the bathroom one evening and never seen again.

At the time, I blamed myself. How could I be so sloppy! My thin precious allowance was parceled out judiciously to purchase only the most important of media, such as Marvel's early 90's Cable anthology, and then I go and lose my treasures! I would grind my fists, and go for a ride on my BMX instead of listening to Prince.

And I suspected nothing. Mom wouldn't be throwing out my stuff and not telling me about it. Would she?

My mother's policy on TV and film was just as merciless. The cartoon Ghostbusters was only allowed once a week, because it had ghosts in it. Star Wars was "filled with all those weird people." Dungeons & Dragons was tinged with Satanic influences. Rated R movies were of course totally forbidden, even if they were on TV, and other movies had first to be vetted by a trusted source, like a neighbor or a friend, before they were cleared for consumption. (This is the only reason I was able to see Ghostbusters one New Years' Eve in a basement. And it blew my mind.)     

She also only ever let me buy one toy gun a year. I would save up my gun rations for two years to go to Disneyworld and buy a brace of pistols at Pirates of the Caribbean.

And it was the gun-buying which was the key. Despite being 35 years-old, I still have a thing for buying toy guns. I have three in my closet right now. And when I mentioned this curious habit to my mother, her response was, "Well I tried so hard, not letting you buy 'em, but I guess it's the way you are."

But am I Mom?

To what extent did forbidding the purchase of guns make them more desirable?

And in thinking back on it, when asked why she would forbid the watching of movies or reading of books, she would say things like, "You're not old enough," or "Those books aren't good for you."

There are books that aren't good for me?

Is it any wonder that I have turned out to be a voracious reader and consumer of all books, but with an especial eye to the outre and the elliptonic? The weird and the wondrous?

If the books aren't good for me, the books must have a power. There must be some secret knowledge within them that changes me. And in trying to keep me from the strange, all my mother did was make it more enticing. I remember telling friends about the thrills of listening to Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and White Zombie in high school, and how the best thing about the music was that it was dangerous. The looked at me like I had two mouths and said, "Whaddaya mean, dangerous?" And I explained that it felt like the kind of music that might in someway expose you to Satan, and they said they never got any of that from NIN.

And after reflection, I realized they were right. It was a strange thought. Why would music expose me to Satan? And that's when I realized that it was my mother's thinking living in my head.

To what extent did my mother fly my freak flag for me?