I find it kind of funny...

A friend showed me this amusing link today: How to look gothic without your mom screaming at you?

That's rather cute, I think. Could almost say, "those were the days", but I haven't suffered that much.

Now I have to point out that I'm in my twenties, so I don't really have such issues with my parents anymore. I haven't had any too dramatic issues when I was a teenager either. Now let's see... I was thirteen when my all black period begun. I was in high school when it ended. Nowadays I still dress mostly in black, but I've grown to like grey, white, red and pink as well. Now I have some slight interest in purple, blue and brown as well, especially through make-up. (Oh, I have a love&hate relationship with white. It's elegant, but I think that all the white clothes I own have eventually turned grayish or yellowish, no matter how I try to do my laundry. It's annoying. Very annoying.)

I got a long, black leather jacket from parents before my black period begun. But they already knew I had a thing for ehm... rock. That jacket was very heavy metal fan credible. That's what I was, too. I've only got truly interested in gothic culture after teenage, so before that, or in my early teenage I was certainly a metal fan. Anyway... my mother also bought my first spiky collar. It has small, conical spikes – she wouldn't have approved of so-called rat spikes or anything bigger, so I guess... she bought it so that she could control the size of my spikes. :D

However, I had understood that she didn't like spiky collars. One day, when I was fourteen (I guess) I bought a different type of necklace that had spikes. I personally think it's rather beautiful, and I would find collars much more radical than that. However, mother got mad at me, and didn't speak to me for a week. (But on the other hand I was in a boarding school at that time, so... not even at home for most of those days.)

All in all, I think my parents have never had remarkably big issues with my clothes or make-up. My father never cared, mother did, but not so much so that I wouldn't have been able to express myself. My mother, however, made sure I didn't wear my leather jacket in the summer, nor my warboots, because she thought it would have looked idiotic. Once I also heard criticism on wearing black in the summer in the first place, but well... Those complaints didn't carry far.

Sometimes I heard not-so-flattering comments about my use of eyeliner, but... I'm not exactly sure what my mother meant – whether she didn't like heavy make-up in the first place, or whether she didn't like how I pulled it off. However, now that I'm old enough, I am slightly horrified by the way I wore make-up in my early teenage... Nowadays I still wear heavy eye-make-up, and I'm not sure whether I'll look back on my current style with a facepalm reaction once I'm over thirty. Hopefully not. :D

I'm not exactly sure what my parents thought of when my style changed into hmm... well, when it changed when I was about seventeen. Earlier my style had been even a bit tomboyish, but suddenly it turned girlish, with some bizarre side effects such as overknee socks, short skirts and a garter belt showing clearly underneath the skirt. It was not an accident, it was the whole point – as if I had needed garter belts, but they were cool and supposed to be seen. But once again – my mother was with me when I purchased my first pair. She didn't object. She didn't say anything remarkably bad about that when I was underage/teenager... But last summer I got to hear I look like a whore. :D Though it was not meant to be offending, it was a slightly amused remark.

Oh well... I truly hope little gothlings have those pieces of advice useful. It's a shame if one's parents prevent them from being unique, though, parents can be right too... Especially since there's a fine line between being radical, original and pretty vs. being radical, original and sloppy...

Oh well... so long!