Muffy Called....

When did I become so preppy? Last week, after doing my laundry, I counted six different shirts hanging to dry that featured that widely-recognized, country clubbish, polo-playing-man-on-horse logo. That's just in one load of laundry. Before going to college, I don't remember having one item of Ralph Lauren clothing. How did I acquire so much within five years? And why? What inspired this Polo purchasing?

I've come to realize that we often become most like what our parents are not. My parents are not preppy. They are not the country club sort (although we did belong to a small club for a few years). They don't drive foreign cars. They don't do brunch. No dinner parties. No furniture from Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn. They are White, but not Anglo-Saxon or Protestant. They attended public schools through college (aside from my mother's time in Catholic grade schools).

It's not preppy, but yuppie that I aspire to. As an adolescent, I wished my parents were more like the drinking, dinner party, always dressed up, European car driving, country club member Moms and Dads of my classmates. My parents never looked put together. They didn't seem to have the yuppie lifestyle that I coveted. And maybe that's why I longed to be part of it. There are those eccentric, hippie spawn of the country club set who are clearly rebelling against their family background. They have no interest in polos and pearls, tee times or fraternities.

Me? Well, I only applied to private colleges. I knew I wanted to be in a sorority. My dream car is an Audi. I am addicted to Starbucks. I get J Crew and Anthropologie catalogues in the mail. I had the frightening realization one day that I wanted to be one of those wives who drove around in their cute car, running errands after morning Pilates with a Venti coffee in one hand and cell phone in the other.

My mother would cringe if she knew that. Probably because she didn't raise me to be such a yuppie, shallow person. And probably because she'd think she failed me, believing that in my desire was a desire for her to be that kind of mom. And she'd be right.