Good Girls Go To Heaven Bad Girls Go Everywhere
Without Prejudice
I have always been a fully paid up member of the Bad Girls Club. My Older Sister Jackie, is a good girl and I am a bad girl. She was conditioned around Mum and I was conditioned around my Brothers and they can be bastards, when they feel like it. I always thought the option of getting dirty and climbing trees was much more fun than being in the house, learning house hold skills.
I was always in a pair of bathers, always had a sunburned nose, my freckled celtic thin scottish skin burning like crazy in the hot Aussie outback sun. We lived in places like Avalon, Newport, Canowindra, Wentworthville and Southport on the Gold Coast. In those days there were hats, no sunscreen and there was no way I was wearing a hat. My hair turned a dark pea green in spots from chlorinated pools and all I was interested in was swimming and winning.
My sister told me at my Junior Debutante ball I just slid up and down the hall on the sawdust, dirtying the beautiful long white dress Mum had the town seamstress make me. I was always being called aside by my Dad and told to try being more of a lady. He would brush my tangled hair and say how pretty it was when it was brushed, but I didn't care.
The only fight he and I ever had was because at 8 he wanted me to take salt tablets before a Swim Meet and there was no way I was. The ensuing struggle was fast and he never ever became angry, he was a patient man but he made me take them and as soon as his back was turned I spat them out.
I lied at Sunday School before I even started school because if it was your birthday you were given coloured stamps to put in your handbag. I said it was my birthday and was caught out on the way home but there was no way I was giving up the stamps.
Jackie was disgusted with me. So was the Sunday School teacher but I was triumphant. I didn't care. The stamps were lovely all blue and gold with a suffering saviour in a crown of thorns. What a sacrilegious child I was at 4. My Mother had already caught me out playing Doctors and Nurses with the rough boy over the road and she was not happy. I was only ticked off and therefore was determined to continue on being curious about boys anatomy. Such fun!
I can remember never being allowed to talk at the table and having to say,
"Please may I leave the table", before leaving it. Little Scottish/British children were expected to have immaculate manners and be well spoken and never ever swear. Funny now as when my girls and I all get together we swear like troopers and always have. Yvette's the worst but we all do pretty well. My Mum, after Jamie died and she became an Aetheist blasphemed all over the place. Everything was Jesus Christ or just Christ! We "Got on her tit end", she would say and if we dared to ask what was for tea, we would be told, "Shit with sugar on"
This was alarming coming from our very proper RAF trained British Mother but she didn't care. I never heard her drop the F or C bomb and I only heard the F bomb, once when Kenneth Tynan said it on the BBC when we lived in the U.K. from when I was 12 to 16. My parents were suitably shocked and horrified. I waited up to see it but they made me go to bed, so I snuck out in the hall so I could hear it.
I once said shit to my older brother George when we were walking to the bus to our Grammar School and he whacked me and was going to tell Mum, which he did, the little Klypie. (A klypie) is a tell tale tit in Scottish and my Mum used to use the word all the time. Because she was a mix of aristocracy from the RAF and down to earth Yorkshire woman she had some fantastic sayings.
If we asked where something was she would reply
"Up in Annie's Room Behind the wallpaper"
If we asked for money, say two bob, she would reply
"If I two bob I would have a regiment of Soldiers guarding it !"
Another one was "Rich beyond the dreams of avarice"
She was not only down to earth but a depressive which we didn't realise then and her favourite saying was,
"Expect nothing and you are seldom disappointed"
If I said I was "trying" she would answer,
"Yes, very!"
She was wordy and a genius and so fragile and brittle it was a wonder she didn't shatter but she loved having a big family and loved kids to death. Give her a dozen she would often say. She bonded with me as I grew older and she realised I was laso very brainy. But she went around it in the strangest ways. She loved the book Catch 22 and gave it to me to read at 11. She thought I would "love" it which I did but I didn't understand it. My brother at that time was joining the Army and she cried, she never cried. And Catch 22 was all about the stupidity of the army.
She was still alive when he went to Vietnam and I think she bagan shutting down about then. She had not been well when I was engaged and she looked awful, she had a goitre and had a thyroid problem and it triggered the latent mental condition from the war. She was dead by the time I was 21 and it was shocking. Awful. Our brilliant pretty genius strong Mum was gone, leaving us all devastated.
But she was in a world of madness and terrible violence and in the end I guess it was a relief for her, poor baby. Helen my younger Sister was only 10 and if anything was going to hold Mum to life it was having such a young child, but it wasn't to be. But my Mum, after Jamie died became the bad girl that I followed. She questioned and she pushed and she lost faith but mainly she became stern and rebellious instead of soft and happy. She raged at inequality, racism, discrimination, she was Germaine Greer before Germain Greer came along.
She believed in Education for her children, number one.
"If you educate the man, you educate the man, but if you educate the woman, you educate the Family" she would say to everyone and it
was drummed into my Sisters and I. I went back to school when I was 32 and did my V.C.E. in English and Human Development and Law and came top in English. I did it for my Mum, she long gone by then but I could hear her urging me on.
Jackie is educated but hated school and couldn't wait to get out, leaving school at 14 after kicking the Maths Teacher in the shin and she went to work. Helen went back to school as well after having four boys and is now a Nurse and we are so proud of her. None of the girls are as academic as I am, I devour books and may, just may do another degree but I don;t know. I am having such a good time, writing now and helping with the kids and being a Nanny I can't imagine hitting the books again, but never say never.
So my Mother taught me to be a bad girl, to question the Status Quo, to challenge discrimination and I have been hated and hit and admired with equal fervour. But the journey of the Bad Girl is to me so much better than the namby pamby journey of the "Good Girls". I have rebelled and hit back and "fucked up" a few men and they have "fucked up" me. But I will always be a rebel and I will always think most men are inferior to me in so many ways and if they are smart they already know this.
When my older Brother was married for the second time he had at his wedding all his friends from Uni. He was doing his Masters in Chinese. Big stuff! and the idiot challenged me to go up against his Uni friends, the geniuses at Trivial Pursuit. I remember saying (I was a bit tipsy) for him or them to put their money where their mouths were. He became a bit antsy as the competition neared as the stakes were $20 a head and there were 6 men in it.
"Are you sure you want to do this ?" He said.
I won $120 so easy, Ha ! Eat that boys. !
So now you know why I am a bad girl. Its way more fun and rewarding.
Love Janette
I have always been a fully paid up member of the Bad Girls Club. My Older Sister Jackie, is a good girl and I am a bad girl. She was conditioned around Mum and I was conditioned around my Brothers and they can be bastards, when they feel like it. I always thought the option of getting dirty and climbing trees was much more fun than being in the house, learning house hold skills.
I was always in a pair of bathers, always had a sunburned nose, my freckled celtic thin scottish skin burning like crazy in the hot Aussie outback sun. We lived in places like Avalon, Newport, Canowindra, Wentworthville and Southport on the Gold Coast. In those days there were hats, no sunscreen and there was no way I was wearing a hat. My hair turned a dark pea green in spots from chlorinated pools and all I was interested in was swimming and winning.
My sister told me at my Junior Debutante ball I just slid up and down the hall on the sawdust, dirtying the beautiful long white dress Mum had the town seamstress make me. I was always being called aside by my Dad and told to try being more of a lady. He would brush my tangled hair and say how pretty it was when it was brushed, but I didn't care.
The only fight he and I ever had was because at 8 he wanted me to take salt tablets before a Swim Meet and there was no way I was. The ensuing struggle was fast and he never ever became angry, he was a patient man but he made me take them and as soon as his back was turned I spat them out.
I lied at Sunday School before I even started school because if it was your birthday you were given coloured stamps to put in your handbag. I said it was my birthday and was caught out on the way home but there was no way I was giving up the stamps.
Jackie was disgusted with me. So was the Sunday School teacher but I was triumphant. I didn't care. The stamps were lovely all blue and gold with a suffering saviour in a crown of thorns. What a sacrilegious child I was at 4. My Mother had already caught me out playing Doctors and Nurses with the rough boy over the road and she was not happy. I was only ticked off and therefore was determined to continue on being curious about boys anatomy. Such fun!
I can remember never being allowed to talk at the table and having to say,
"Please may I leave the table", before leaving it. Little Scottish/British children were expected to have immaculate manners and be well spoken and never ever swear. Funny now as when my girls and I all get together we swear like troopers and always have. Yvette's the worst but we all do pretty well. My Mum, after Jamie died and she became an Aetheist blasphemed all over the place. Everything was Jesus Christ or just Christ! We "Got on her tit end", she would say and if we dared to ask what was for tea, we would be told, "Shit with sugar on"
This was alarming coming from our very proper RAF trained British Mother but she didn't care. I never heard her drop the F or C bomb and I only heard the F bomb, once when Kenneth Tynan said it on the BBC when we lived in the U.K. from when I was 12 to 16. My parents were suitably shocked and horrified. I waited up to see it but they made me go to bed, so I snuck out in the hall so I could hear it.
I once said shit to my older brother George when we were walking to the bus to our Grammar School and he whacked me and was going to tell Mum, which he did, the little Klypie. (A klypie) is a tell tale tit in Scottish and my Mum used to use the word all the time. Because she was a mix of aristocracy from the RAF and down to earth Yorkshire woman she had some fantastic sayings.
If we asked where something was she would reply
"Up in Annie's Room Behind the wallpaper"
If we asked for money, say two bob, she would reply
"If I two bob I would have a regiment of Soldiers guarding it !"
Another one was "Rich beyond the dreams of avarice"
She was not only down to earth but a depressive which we didn't realise then and her favourite saying was,
"Expect nothing and you are seldom disappointed"
If I said I was "trying" she would answer,
"Yes, very!"
She was wordy and a genius and so fragile and brittle it was a wonder she didn't shatter but she loved having a big family and loved kids to death. Give her a dozen she would often say. She bonded with me as I grew older and she realised I was laso very brainy. But she went around it in the strangest ways. She loved the book Catch 22 and gave it to me to read at 11. She thought I would "love" it which I did but I didn't understand it. My brother at that time was joining the Army and she cried, she never cried. And Catch 22 was all about the stupidity of the army.
She was still alive when he went to Vietnam and I think she bagan shutting down about then. She had not been well when I was engaged and she looked awful, she had a goitre and had a thyroid problem and it triggered the latent mental condition from the war. She was dead by the time I was 21 and it was shocking. Awful. Our brilliant pretty genius strong Mum was gone, leaving us all devastated.
But she was in a world of madness and terrible violence and in the end I guess it was a relief for her, poor baby. Helen my younger Sister was only 10 and if anything was going to hold Mum to life it was having such a young child, but it wasn't to be. But my Mum, after Jamie died became the bad girl that I followed. She questioned and she pushed and she lost faith but mainly she became stern and rebellious instead of soft and happy. She raged at inequality, racism, discrimination, she was Germaine Greer before Germain Greer came along.
She believed in Education for her children, number one.
"If you educate the man, you educate the man, but if you educate the woman, you educate the Family" she would say to everyone and it
was drummed into my Sisters and I. I went back to school when I was 32 and did my V.C.E. in English and Human Development and Law and came top in English. I did it for my Mum, she long gone by then but I could hear her urging me on.
Jackie is educated but hated school and couldn't wait to get out, leaving school at 14 after kicking the Maths Teacher in the shin and she went to work. Helen went back to school as well after having four boys and is now a Nurse and we are so proud of her. None of the girls are as academic as I am, I devour books and may, just may do another degree but I don;t know. I am having such a good time, writing now and helping with the kids and being a Nanny I can't imagine hitting the books again, but never say never.
So my Mother taught me to be a bad girl, to question the Status Quo, to challenge discrimination and I have been hated and hit and admired with equal fervour. But the journey of the Bad Girl is to me so much better than the namby pamby journey of the "Good Girls". I have rebelled and hit back and "fucked up" a few men and they have "fucked up" me. But I will always be a rebel and I will always think most men are inferior to me in so many ways and if they are smart they already know this.
When my older Brother was married for the second time he had at his wedding all his friends from Uni. He was doing his Masters in Chinese. Big stuff! and the idiot challenged me to go up against his Uni friends, the geniuses at Trivial Pursuit. I remember saying (I was a bit tipsy) for him or them to put their money where their mouths were. He became a bit antsy as the competition neared as the stakes were $20 a head and there were 6 men in it.
"Are you sure you want to do this ?" He said.
I won $120 so easy, Ha ! Eat that boys. !
So now you know why I am a bad girl. Its way more fun and rewarding.
Love Janette
