My mom was a sweet, polite, quiet little southern lady, until someone messed with her kids…
I went to a very pricey, K-12, private school. In high school we finally got to wear real clothes, not uniforms. Of course the hem had to touch the ground when we kneeled (talk about an effed up power trip!)
I was a sophomore, had grown 2 inches over the summer and had gotten new clothes. One was a little yellow front button dress that was the (minimum) permitted length.
I’d worn it all fall but in April, one of the (male) teachers reported me for it being too short.
I was sent to the Dean of Women who read me the riot act and said I’d need to call my mom to take me home to change.
I will confess I had been a bit of an “activist,” confounding an underground paper at the school and writing unflattering but true articles. I was also a smart ass, but my dress fully met the criteria.
I told her this was bull and she handed me the phone.
I called mom and told her the situation: dress compliant, BS targeting me, power dynamics, etc.
my sweet little mother drove to school and came to the office where I was still with the Dean of Women. The Dean started to talk and my mother firmly said “No! You’ve done enough talking. Now you’re going to listen.”
I had no idea where Mom was going but I was happy to go along with her. She looked the Dean in the eye and said “I hope you’re proud of yourself. In a single afternoon you’ve undone months of psychotherapy. My daughter is in a fragile state and this singling her out and picking on her is dangerous and harmful.”
I was not fragile and had never been to a shrink. My mom was doing improv!
So I start sniffling, progressing to full sobbing. Mom then said “I, going to go straight from here to the Headmaster and tell him about your egregious behavior. We’ve paid thousands of dollars in tuition since kindergarten and this treatment is UNACCEPTABLE.”
The Dean was wringing her hands and falling all over herself apologizing and imploring my mom not to go to the headmaster.
Mom said we would not escalate this but she expected the reporting teacher and the Dean to write me full letters of apology, to which the Dean agreed. She was shook!
I finally got my “sobbing” under control and Mom said she was taking me for an emergency appointment with my therapist, and those letters had best be ready by morning.
My mom - my sweet, rule-abiding, non-confrontational, high school educated, small-town mom was a BADASS. As we left she said to me “nobody messes with my kids!”
I asked her how come she played the psych card. She said “I figured it would scare her the most and be impossible and inappropriate for her to verify.
I got the apologies, and from then on had carte Blanche because they were too afraid of my mom. The rest of high school was a blast!