My daily encounters with my daughters were always within the same sterile environment – at home, among family, where there are no threatening male presences. Their young male friends whose floundering teenage courage rarely allowed them to come a-calling were predictably always on best behavior around me. So I was not prepared for the relentless barrage of male attention showered on them one summer while we were on a European vacation.
In London, as we were walking along Brompton Road in Knightsbridge right outside Harrod’s, a sleek navy-blue convertible, immediately conspicuous because of the music blaring from the stereo and the five or so adrenalin-pumped teenage passengers of Arab descent, slowed down beside me and Francesca. The car came to a crawl in keeping pace with us and the boys continued mouthing unintelligible words. It became instantly apparent that they were harmless and were simply appreciating my daughter but I nonetheless prodded her to move on the double for us to escape the precarious situation. That was when I noticed that her skirt barely had enough material in it to be called such. It was missing a whole lot – the lower half, in fact! I made a mad scramble to conceal her overexposed legs with the shopping bags I was toting but the effort was belated, therefore moot. I was hyperventilating and cursing the day mini skirts were born but Francesca was not amused at my overreaction. I swear that what she claimed was open admiration sounded to me like hisses and snarls accompanied by hand gesticulations that may in some remote tribal community merit a beheading.
We flew to Paris and were on the left bank seeking out the restaurant Le Procope for a dinner of bone marrow. We were on one of the side streets in the Latin Quarter when two well-groomed young men, American tourists, came up to our huddle and addressed my two girls. "Hi, sorry to bother you, but do you know Paris?" Of course, they meant to ultimately ask the girls to sightsee with them but I wasn’t born yesterday. I immediately stepped in from between the girls, pushing their shoulders aside much like an irate cowboy parting the saloon doors in search of a brawl. "Yes, I know Paris," I declared. "This is Paris! You are in Paris!" Duh! I couldn’t have embarrassed myself, my daughters and those two gentlemen any more if I had tried.
We flew down south to Nice and were lounging beachside on a lazy Sunday afternoon. My daughter Beatrice craved ice-cold watermelon and called for a waiter. My eyes were closed to guard from the sun’s glare but I could hear the exchange of halting French and that distinct Niçoise drawl between them. When the conversation did not end shortly as I had expected, I opened one eye and saw that the waiter – youthful, probably a student on a summer job – had engaged my daughter further in conversation while checking out her blue bikini at the same time. I knew I was right when I had said earlier that I thought her bikini to be a little too small (if that is at all possible). I promptly sat up, reached for a towel and threw it onto her lap. I proceeded to fake a coughing fit and signaled for some water to send the young man on his way.
I came up with a brilliant idea to escape the now-assembling horde of young waiters eyeing that blue bikini. I dragged my daughters to the nearby parasailing platform. They signed up and paid as I found a shady corner, a perfect spot from which to view the shore launch of their parasail. Two shirtless, half-naked, bronzed, sun-bleached, blonde boys came up to my daughters bearing the parasail harnesses. Before I could sit up to protest, the boys started gearing up my girls in those full-body harnesses, winding the straps around their thighs, waists and shoulders. It was a "hand is faster than the eye" moment. All I could see was the elaborate multiple hand-play of strap-winding and buckle-locking around my daughters’ bodies which, just as I was about to yell "stop," was promptly over.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the speedboat pulled them up to a launch and they started gliding in the sky as their chutes opened. I wished for them to be airborne for a long while so I could have some peace on the ground.
We moved on to Italy and whatever little restraint the Frenchmen had was completely lost among the Italians. We were in Florence and lining up at the Galleria dell’Accademia to view Michelangelo’s "David." I spotted an Italian boy with wild, curly brown hair, a few heads down, rubbernecking to catch a glimpse of my daughter Beatrice, who was ahead of me in the queue. I don’t know how he managed but after a few minutes he found his way right next to me in the line. Hoping to ward him off early on, I declared "I am her mother!" as I pointed a finger at my daughter. He replied in heavily accented English – "Hi, nice to meet you" – and started making eyes at Beatrice. I had to fight an overwhelming urge to pull on each of his curls until they were flat-out straightened. During my time, the simple presence of mothers was guaranteed to send hovering boys scampering for cover. We rounded a corner in the museum and came upon a full view of the magnificent sculpture of David, some 17 feet high. The line was moving swiftly and in no time we were standing directly beneath David’s bottom. I noticed that among all the heads looking up, the curly-haired one behind me was looking down and forward – most definitely not at David’s bottom but at my daughter’s! I rudely told him to behold Michelangelo’s masterpiece – not mine! The nerve, I thought. My daughter is my national treasure and is not for public consumption.
Had we stayed longer in Italy I would have caught my death via a burst artery from hypertension. This overt show of male admiration was getting the better of me. The catcalling, lip-puckering, finger-smacking appreciation from Italian men can be viewed as barbaric "ape-ism" by middle-aged, overprotective mothers like me who feel violated when their daughters are subject to such outbursts of temporary male insanity. Plus the delays they cause happen to derail very tight shopping schedules, which may even be the greater offense.
When is male admiration considered flattering and when does it amount to plain badgering? Isn’t it normal for men to openly display their appreciation for women? Doesn’t it operate under the same principle as body English and sound emissions they produce at exciting ball games? Isn’t it simply something ritualistic and ceremonial with no real relevance? Isn’t the perception of and reaction to this type of male behavior all a matter of attitude and all supposed to be taken in good humor?
I figured then that if someone wants to come within 10 feet of my daughters he’d better wear his most conservative Brooks Brothers button-down pinpoint oxford shirt, preferably in a staid blue with his steam-pressed khaki chinos that are an exact fit; polished shoes; trimmed fingernails; and well-groomed hair. He’d better be on exemplary behavior at all times and while he is at it, he might as well carry a certified true copy of his school transcript.
But it didn’t work that way. It took a long time for me to realize the absurdity of my reactions so that many more surreal moments and circus acts resulted from my ineptitude at dealing with male admiration. Francesca, now 22, and Beatrice, 20, are all grown up and perfectly able to take care of themselves as they had been all along. They have been away at university for some years and have introduced me to a multitude of their male friends who come in all shapes, sizes, persuasions, politics and piercings. Most of them are lovely in their unique ways, truly interesting people and amazing friends.
The badgering is, of course, still there when we travel and since my daughters can handle it better I leave them to deal with it as I hold my tongue, turn blue in the face and pray for the earth to open up and swallow the hungry wolves alive – all these while appearing prim and poised in one corner.
Last year in London, we were at Leicester Square when a young schoolboy in uniform gathered enough courage to come up to Francesca to drop her a witty pickup line. I was aghast at his brazenness, but cool and collected Francesca merely said: "You’re a bit young for me, yeah? But nice try and get back to me in a few years!"
I worry still about my girls but I try to console myself knowing that Francesca has jumped out of an airplane, crossed the African desert and can out-drink any gaucho from the Mexican and Argentine pampas any day on tequila. Beatrice has cliff-dived in Corfu and camped out with members of Hell’s Angels and lived to tell about it. She has a mean right hook, a killer kick on the soccer field and fast fingers that can twirl the Batangas balisong like nobody’s business. There’s no way that a little catcalling can throw them off-kilter. I believe our bases are pretty much covered.