No Trip To Italy and Losing a Good Friend

This is one of the sad stories of my life. This one comes from high school, when I was a senior. My school planned the mother of all senior trips: a trip to Rome and Florence, Italy in January 1967. The trip was announced in November so we would have time to prepare for the trip. The cost was very reasonable for those day--$300. That included airfare, meals, transportation on the ground in Italy--everything. I was so excited about going on this trip which would also visit Florence to see the amazing artwork in that city. In fact, most of the trip was centered around art in Italy. The nuns and priests from school were chaperones as well as parents.


I remember coming home and telling my parents with the letter that the school sent to them. I was so sure they would be happy and think that it was an amazing opportunity for a 17 year old. But I was wrong. My mother thought it was not a good idea. She felt teenagers should not be going off to Italy because they wouldn't appreciate it. And it was a lot of money for my family. I tried the approach of telling my mother I would look for a job to help pay for the trip, but she did not approve of the trip and said so. A job to pay my way would not matter. My father said nothing. Raising children was my mother's business, not his. Especially not expressing his opinions about his daughters.

When I went to my grandparents' house for dinner the next week, I told my grandmother about the trip and my mother's reaction. My grandmother was horrified that my mother had reacted that way. That weekend, we were summoned to my grandparents' house and my Aunt Elsie and Uncle Bob were there too. My grandmother wanted to talk to my parents about the trip to Italy. She, my Aunt Elsie, and my Uncle Donald (Elsie and Donald were my godparents) attempted to talk to my mother about the trip, pointing out the benefits to me of the trip and saying that it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to go on such a trip. They all offered to pay for my way on the trip, they felt that strongly about it.

But my mother also felt strongly, in the negative, about the trip. She didn't want to accept money from my grandmother, my aunt and uncle, I think, because she would feel beholding to them. But more important, she did not feel that 17-year-olds should be going to Italy. We wouldn't appreciate it; we would not obey the chaperones, And, I will never forget this, she said, "I've never been to Europe; no daughter of mine is going off to Europe when I've never even been there."

I had always thought that parents wanted their children to have opportunities that they never had, but apparently that was not my mother's philosophy. My grandmother begged my father to talk to my mother and explain how important it was that I take this wonderful opportunity, but he would not go against my mother's decision. And it was HER decision. My parents did not discuss it--pros and cons. My mother had decided and that was that. My Aunt Elsie tried to talk to my mother about it and was basically told to stay out of our family business. This she said to her best friend; she didn't want my Aunt Elsie to look like a savior in my eyes, when my mother and I did not get along well. It was a case of my mother asserting her authority over me and what I did or did not do, So I was not allowed to go on the trip (which everyone said was the most amazing time of their lives).

My second best friend Bridget, whom I had been spending a lot of time with since Nancy and her boyfriend were preoccupied with each other. Bridget's mother, a very good friend of my grandmother, invited me to go to New York City for a long weekend while the rest of our class was in Italy. I was thrilled to be asked, and Mrs. Green was paying for everything. My mother said that I could go (she had been to NYC so I guess that's why it was all right). Bridget said something to someone at school about our mini-trip. And my best friend Nancy became jealous. She snubbed me at school and when I asked her what was the matter, she told me to be friends with Bridget but I had betrayed her by agreeing to go with Bridget. Apparently Nancy wanted to go too, but Mrs. Green did not really know Nancy and Bridget was not her close friend the way Bridget and I were. Nancy never spoke to me after she heard I was going to NYC with Bridget. She was cold and aloof and snubbed me and spread rumors about me the whole year after that. I was so sad and crushed that Nancy would do that to me. I couldn't make Mrs. Green take her on the trip, and why shouldn't I go if I was asked and my mother had said yes. It was a terrible thing to lose my best friend over something so silly. It was petty jealousy.

My grandmother, my aunt, and my mother did not have a very good relationship after the offer of the trip was turned down and Grandma and Aunt Elsie were told to stay out of our business. There was always hostility and tension amongst them after that. I still harbor anger with my mother for not letting me go for such a senseless reason. And I only grew closer to my grandmother and my aunt and my mother knew it, and was jealous. I also was angry with my father that he would not intercede and at least discuss it with my mother, or overrule her decision. But he never wanted cross my mother or make her upset, because then she would get extremely angry and out of control. But I was angry with him for not standing up to her, and telling her that she was wrong in this case.

This trip and the fall-out haunted me until I was 50 years old, nearly 51. I decided to take a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean which visited Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, and Croatia. It was a wonderful experience and made up for the trip for which I had been denied all those years ago.