Confessions of a Free Range Prolapsed Catholic

Recently I have had three conversations with young people at least one generation apart from each other (perhaps) and certainly more than two generations away from me. Each of these beings is comfortable with the pronouns they prefer for themselves. I, on the other hand, had my pronouns thrust upon me by virtue of the filters within which I was raised, lovingly and reasonably happily.

However I am wondering about how different my life choices may have been if all those filters – the church, the social norms of the post WWII era, my adolescence in the 1960’s and 70’s were not applied, imposed, pounded into me!

When I was a kid to be called a “Tom Boy”, a term usually describing a kid like me with the female bits, was an explanation for someone who didn’t like shoes, was more comfortable in a favourite outfit of green poplin shorts and a yellow t shirt, (before T shirts were a thing!), loved to climb trees, swing as high as I could on our backyard swing, sing “Doin what comes naturally” from “Annie get your gun” as sung by Betty Hutton, with gusto and a full on country and western style, at the top of my voice! My sister’s admonishment that “those words mean sitting on the toilet and doing a poo”! didn’t stop me. My vowels were flatter than my chest and my mother would frequently beg me to “modulate your voice, Louie!” I even felt I had to resist and apologise for my given name “Louise” – too posh, too girlie. I preferred “Louie” mainly because the local policeman who lived in the police residence two doors away from me was a big burly bloke named “Lou” and he would joke with me about our shared christian names!

When I made “my first communion” I wore a white dress. I loved it. A little white bolero to cover my arms, and a veil to hide my “crowning glory”. The real purpose of the veil from behind my 7 year old eyes was to hide the horrible short back and sides with a little fringe courtesy of my Dad who cut all the kid’s hair. I had white frilly socks and beautiful leather shoes, with spectacular gold buckles. I sang the first communion hymn with my sweet little voice ( not a sign of Betty Hutton) “O, Mary,Mother sweetest blest, from heaven’s immortal bower. Do gather for this little child a bouquet of sweet flowers I wish my little heart could be a cradle fair and gay, where Blessed Jesus may repose on my first communion day.” The picture portrait at the communion breakfast table captures a beautiful little dark haired, brown eyed 7 year old looking beautiful but feeling itchy. Not an inkling of a Tom Boy!

We all studied music and learned the piano.This was my salvation and became my career. But had finances allowed, I think my Mum would have loved to send me to “Deportment Classes” or “Elocution Lessons”. I played “girl sports” at school, netball and vigaro, female cricket sort of, with a leather covered paddle like “bat”. In high school we walked with books on our heads to improve our posture in preparation for “mother and daughter dinners” and learned how to crook a little finger while holding the china tea cup!

June Dally Watkins featured strongly in magazines with articles on how to sit correctly, crossing ankles – left over right – in preparation for front row girls in the school photos! Legs together at all times!

But I was a Tom Boy. All that girly stuff held little appeal or fascination for me. My hands were short and stumpy. I did not have the long, slender digits of some of my siblings ” the beautiful hands of a priest” for two of my brothers. “Louie, you’ve got my hands” apologetically from my mother!

My mother’s hands! Loved, held, prayed for, fed, bathed 6 of her own children and four of mine. My mother’s hands could play anything by way of a good singalong that produced hours and hours of fun across the four generations to whom she was Matriarch! My mother’s hands could flip a wet dish cloth across the calves of any of her offspring when they were fooling around while drying the dishes.

My mother’s hands were those of a brilliant typist. When she informed her employer that she was getting married and would therefore have to leave her position, he told her she was too valuable to loose. She went anyway but she taught me how to touch type, covering my hands with the tool of her trade, a tea towel, assuring me it would help me get a job as a typist.

(As I type this, my heart is in my mouth with a new realisation! I have to get it down. My mother gave birth to 6 children. Her first 3 children left home at the ages of 16, about 17, and 17 to join religious communities. I have only, in this moment, thought that it may have been her way of hoping I did not leave. )

So. In my recent conversation with one of the young people who started with “I think my gender is fluid and my preferred pronouns are they/them. Did you know that?” I had to think a bit. They went on “sometimes, I feel like a girl and like to do girl things and sometimes, I think like a boy and want to like and do boy things.” Being formed in a generation, the one that I was brought up with, institutional church, the threat of war, the promise of the peace movement, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Vietnam war, the Women’s Liberation movement, the Space race, the filters were clear and controlled! I learned to be ladylike. I learned to modulate my voice. I became comfortable with my given name. I graduated into being an acceptable woman, mother, wife, teacher. But every now and then I remembered that young Tom Boy who belted out “doin what comes naturally”, swung too high on the backyard swing, legs all over the place with gay abandon!

The young people to whom I referred at the start are being formed in a world where the filters that set me on the right path ( according to the chief filterers of the times!) have all just about gone. Not necessarily a bad thing! Their access to any enquiry or wondering or even imagining is 24/7 at the click of a keyboard, encased in headphones connected to AI. Not necessarily a bad thing either but without real time interaction with people, story, connection, finding their way is often too hard!

My answer to the fluid gender enquiry was ” you know, I’ll be 72 in a minute. You have the whole of the rest of your life to work yourself out. I’m still trying to sort it for me!’ And I am. Its not easy. Its a bit like a quest to know what may well never be resolved.

What gives me hope is that those three young people felt safe enough, respected enough, recognised enough to open up the conversation with me and send me back to what I do best, writing it down!