I don't remember this this vividly...

[chicating]

https://www.romper.com/life/cabbage-patch-kid-names-the-popular-toy-dolls-greatest-legacy?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
But I did have a Cabbage Patch doll, at precisely the last instance it might have been my choice to have one. Although, yes, I could have gotten one any time within the next year or so afterwards, due to parent-breakup guilt, especially because my dad never could understand things like how different eleven and fourteen feel as you are living them. Gun to my head, I guess I would say her name was/is Allison, which is funny because I know so many women named that today. We finally have matching red hair.

My parents were breaking up(Well, I wasn't sure about that at the time. and it took a number of...spasms of sleepless nights of fighting to get the job truly done.) Dad went somewhere to gamble, though, and had amazing luck with the slot machines, and won something like 3 or 4 thousand dollars. Which was like the most money I could imagine in 1984-5(or maybe 3-4)...the hysteria had died down a bit, but the dolls were still pretty hot...maybe I was right the first time. He bought Mom a used car, which was a miserable nightmare for the whole rest of the time we had it, and I got my Cabbage Patch doll.Would I be a more wholesome writer if that were a more wholesome story? Possibly. Anyway, for something that was, like, supposed to keep me on the Child side of the line a little longer(Although the weirdest thing someone bought to affirm my femininity was the first wheelchair-using centerfold, I think) it kind of didn't work, because even then, I could kind of understand that Dad wanted the Movie Ending, where he'd bring back these spoils and, like, melt my mom's heart and stuff. Fade to black. (This may have been one of the few times I both knew what my dad was thinking and shared it. But it felt so awful to know it was gonna bomb that we didn't build on it or anything.)

Comments

[michaelboy]

Sometimes it is tough to get things right as a parent. I know I made more than my share of mistakes and missteps, especially when I became the sole and single parent to my kids.

I'm sure that's true...

[chicating]

It's kind of dawning on me at fifty and single, that I'll never really know.