Badge by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
This week’s prompt: “naught/knot/not.”
My mother stood before me hands on hips, finger taking up space as always.
‘You are not to go out with that girl. She is naught but a hussy. A hussy you hear me.’
I felt the knot in my stomach tighten.
Linda was not a hussy. A girl yes. A hussy no. Though at fifteen I wasn’t sure what a hussy was.
She was in my class at school. We sat beside each other. We chatted a lot. Not about schoolwork but about the different worlds we lived in.
Where I was content in my world she was not in her’s.
She never really said it but there was something odd about her dad.
My mother was keen for me to do well in life. I could understand that. She knew Linda’s family; in fact everyone knew Linda’s family. Mum would go on for ages about impressions and reputation.
She reminded me that Linda’s father was known as a drunk within the community and that her mother worked in the meat factory, ‘up to her armpits in pig shit day and night’ my mother would say tossing her head into the air giving me the idea that we were to think of ourselves as being well above the likes of the Linda’s of this world.
Finally mum made me an ultimatum that if I went out with Linda my allowance would be cut off.
I told Linda on Monday at school. She just laughed and said that happens all the time.
I sat beside her for much of my school days. Not once did she appear in any way other than the Linda I knew. I did look up hussy and nowhere was there a single word that I equated with the Linda who chatted with me each day.
Written for: http://lindaghill.com/2015/03/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-2815/
Morpethroad 
Now aren`t you cute using Linda as the name of your friend 🙂 That story hit home on many levels coming from a small town and people judging me from my father`s bad acts. Great story, Michael and always entertaining reading. Now I added you on my list for this challenge if you are up to it:) https://cheryllynnroberts.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/love-in-ten-lines-free-verse-haiku/
Well I shall have to think about this….Thank you for your comment, glad I could entertain you….
You used Linda 🙂 I liked the voice you have given here. And a reflection of how we judge people because of their background and family – ignoring what they actually are! Well done Michael
Thank you praj. I appreciate your comment.
A true friend. I’m so glad mother was ignored – despite the financial implications 🙂
Thank you Lyn, sometimes you have to go against what might be good advice because your heart says otherwise…
True friendship, name calling from others ..water off a ducks back, to those who know the truth. Well done Michael.
Thank you so much Jenny.
Terrific story. Liked the use of Linda. We all have had the same experience I think. Mothers never think the girl is good enough.
Yes John we have. Thanks for dropping by.
Nice story, Michael. 🙂 One that resonates… This happened to me as a teenager, not for the boy’s family’s financial nor behavioral reasons, but because of the colour of their skin. Sad state of affairs.
It is Linda as the tale is based on my own experience where my parents objected to my girlfriend at the time because she was pregnant, not mine, and they feared I would be ‘tarred with the same brush’.
I had a feeling it was a true story. Parents can be so unfair, can’t they?
In my case they were acting in everyone’s best interests so they believed, shame in some ways I didn’t listen to them.
Well, no one can predict the future. Chances are I wasn’t going to end up with little Negroid babies… I only wanted to go to a dance with him. 😛
Our son just turned 33 and even today, his mother is giving him a hard time about the girl he’s seeing. “You could do so much better than her.”
Well that’s how some parents see their kids isn’t, no one is good enough for them…..rather than let them make choices they will learn from either good or bad….
Indeed. Hey, it’s their lives, let them live it and, as you say, perhaps learn from their mistakes.
I loved this story. That is just like mothers wanting their children to choose life partners according to their wishes for them (and everything else too. lol)
That is both sad and sweet, Michael. I’m glad you saw past those negative things people focus on, you got to know more than the “hussy” she was labeled. I’m pretty sure she had more going on in her young life than anyone knew or cared to learn about. I tended to befriend the “outcasts” myself when I was young.
I did marry her eventually which had good and bad results.
I’m sorry, Michael. Life sucks sometimes. What did Forrest Gump say? Life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get.
I didn’t know but I soon found out.
Oh the matters of the heart…