xx/xy

she would dress me in fineries (my sister's hand-me-downs, really) before going to parties. me - six years old - scrawny and shivering like a bird. she would hold me at an arm's length to inspect her handiwork. then with the corners of her mouth drawn down for effect - she would say: nothing looks good on this one.
that was when i was six...
in the years that followed, having lost all credibility as a little girl, i switched gears and walked about pretending to be a boy. with traumatic results.

normal

for the longest time i have wanted to ask people if it is normal for a mother to say the following to her own child: so many good people die everyday but why don't you? why don't you die?. not necessarily in rage. calmly, with quiet resignation. with sincere effort to grasp the reason behind such a wanton transgression.
i know it is normal for kids in the western culture to say this to their parents without causing so much as a frown. but do parents say it back? well... they do a lot worse to some of these kids under abnormal circumstances. but in a regular household - without a history of sexual perversion or other diagnosed psychological conditions in the background - is wishing your child dead, really truly finally dead, something that a parent does as a matter of course or even in rage?
but you are thinking - there are crimes for which such a rebuke may have been warranted... but what if the heinous list of crimes included things such as... well, being late from school and causing a delay. getting a B instead of an A on an exam. being stung by an insect while playing outdoors. asking for attention at inconvenient moments.
being born.