Things we didn't learn from Mother

We have a nice gender balance in our house, two women, two males, and me.   The two women are my wife and my daughter, the two males are the cats, but they don't really count as they've both been "done".   This gives me quite a lot of time to observe how the two women interact, I often think that they are more like sisters than mother and daughter, but that judgement is clouded by my experience of my own Mother.   They have a very easy relationship chatting and sharing.    This made me think about the things I didn't learn from mother, school friends and peers.   Much of what my daughter is learning almost by osmosis I have had to pick up from the Internet or through observation of others.

What do I mean, well how about the good old chestnut of how to put on a bra; how to put on a pair of tights without twisting or laddering them; how to walk in high heels; how to put together an outfit; how short a skirt you can get away with; and right up at the top of the list how to put on makeup and how much of it to use.

I see my daughter learning this all naturally as part of the growing up process, at the moment she is very good at putting on makeup, I just think she uses too much, but then so do most 14 year old girls.   On the other hand I of course am well past 14 but have to use too much make up for other reasons.   I am always worried that when I finish my make up I will end up looking like either the sort of clown that frightens small children, or a drag queen.   Of course what I want to like is just another nicely presented woman, I don't like to see women with a lot of "slap" on their faces, but I have to use more than I would like to see so as to cover the beard.   I do not think that a nice dress, high heels and a six o'clock shadow is a good look, so for me makeup is always a balancing act, enough to cover, but not too much to spoil the "look" I certainly don't want to look like a transvestite!  Sometimes I wonder if too much makeup attracts more attention than a less well covered beard would, only way to find out is to try, maybe one day when I'm feeling brave I will go out with light makeup and see.

Well what prompted these ramblings was a post that Stana put up the other day http://www.femulate.org/2011/09/she-gets-it.html   Last week while talking about clothes and things at home my Wife said to my Daughter, "Oh I don't know, ask your father he know more about fashion than I do" I'm still trying to work out if that's a level of acceptance or a veiled criticism.

P.S. I am dyslectic so rely on the use of spell checkers, I have to run two on this blog, there are words that the blogger one picks up and the google doesn't and visaversa, and by the way I used FIVE semicolons