Kids know 'The Look' is still around

The Boston Herald

I thought THE LOOK had gone the way of penny candy and flavor straws.

"What look?" I expected people to say when I asked about it.

But instead there was all this nodding and smiling and instant recognition. "Oh, I know THE LOOK" and "No one could give THE LOOK like my mother." And "You know what? My mother still gives me THE LOOK."

THE LOOK, I'm happy to say, is alive and well.

I saw it in church Sunday. The priest had the host in his hands and everyone was silent when a little kid in front of me kicked the kneeler or slipped, creating this soft but audible thud.

The thud must have indicated restlessness to the mother, or worse, inattention. For The Look she shot her daughter was total Joan Crawford, straight out of "Mommy Dearest" and so incredibly familiar that I immediately straightened my own back and folded my hands. The narrowed eyes, the furrowed brow, the silent do-that-again-and-you're-dead, the holy trinity of discipline, they were all there. It was my mother incarnate, and all my friend's mothers, every time we did anything wrong.

But how could that be? That was then and this was now and young mothers no longer give THE LOOK.

Ah, but it seems some do.

This mother glared and the child bowed her head and folded her hands and silence reigned. And I thought, hey, THE LOOK still works. THE LOOK is magic.

Well, not exactly, insists my cousin Linda who has three children in middle school. Linda should be queen of THE LOOK. She was, after all, taught by the master, her mother, my aunt Lorraine. No one could give THE LOOK like Lorraine.

"I was 35 years-old sitting in my mother's kitchen," Linda says, "when I said something about someone I apparently shouldn't have said because she gave me THE LOOK and I froze. My mother's look was that good."

So has the skill been passed on?

"Well, no. When I give my kids THE LOOK they ask me why I'm making funny faces. The fear just isn't there."

There has to be fear, insists Ellen Rainey, mother of three. Fear is the foundation on which THE LOOK is built. "You have to be ready to chase your kids around the house or the yard or whatever it takes. When I give my kids THE LOOK (and they are grown now) they still run for the hills. I can raise one eyebrow and they see it coming and immediately stop what they're not supposed to be doing."

This is THE LOOK perfected.

I ask Connor, 14, about the THE LOOK and in the middle of his answer ("Hey Mom? What do I do when you give me THE LOOK?") his mother takes the phone and says, "He ignores it. But Danny and Andy (her grown sons) didn't. All I had to do was look at them and they would stop what they were doing or start doing what they were supposed to be doing. It worked best when I was on the phone. I didn't have to cover the receiver and scream. But with the younger kids even the scream doesn't make it, so something as subtle as a look wouldn't stand a chance. My kids wouldn't recognize it. If they saw it they'd think I had something in my eye."

A troop of Boy Scouts knows what THE LOOK is though each describes it differently. "My mother clenches her teeth." "My mother's eyes get big." Another mother's eyes get small. But none of the boys fears THE LOOK. They make fun of it. "When my mother wants me to stop doing something she pinches me. That makes me stop sometimes, but mostly it makes me scream."

My husband says his father, not his mother, had THE LOOK.

"I'd get it at the dinner table. I'd look up and there it was. And I'd think, where's my elbow? Was I talking with my mouth full? Did I reach across the table? What did I do wrong? Even when my sister was the one getting THE LOOK it would stop me cold."

THE LOOK is a powerful thing. It silences the noisy, stems tears (Who doesn't remember the "Cry-and-I'll-kill-you" look?), encourages a child to say "Please" and "Thank you" as well as finish her peas and sit up straight. Plus it keeps big kids in line, too.

A gift from our mothers (mostly) and part of our heritage (definitely), THE LOOK is a not-so-secret-weapon that surely needs to be passed on.