“An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.” ―Dan Rather

A year ago we moved to a beautiful northern Michigan Peninsula surrounded by lakes. Living in our Cape Cod-ish house has been largely uneventful, no bears, no wild-eyed men with guns asking directions to our governor's summer house, nothing to make us regret the decision to leave Chicago and settle in this small, bucolic town where nearly everyone is related (year-rounders) or at least knows whomever you are currently making snarky remarks about. You must be as careful as King Midas when you want to share that you don't like someone, or you're tired of people promising to invite you over and never doing it, or you can't believe there is no decent coffee shop that remains open after three o’clock in the afternoon (one in the winter). But, as Midas discovered after confiding in his barber, secrets don't have a long shelf life. This is not the Midas story about gold but one about donkey ears. I learned everything about life from Greek mythology: beauty can incite violence, curiosity will result in global pandemics, and you can't protect your child from everything. Remember, Achilles takes an arrow to the heel, and my parents, the arbitrators of good taste.

People see straight through you when you try to be folksy and chill. It's not worth the effort. They can tell you have spent eighty percent (not sure how long I'll live) of your life in cities, both your parents went to Harvard, your vocabulary is massive, and, most importantly, you have lived in dozens of places. New York, San Francisco, Dublin, London, Abu Dhabi, Chicago, Dallas. Your references are seldom local.

I once had a fling with a friend whose parents lived in a house where all the furniture was covered in plastic. When we fooled around in the living room, the sound made by our bodies, being embraced and then rejected by the vinyl slipcovers, was almost as disturbing as the picture of Pope Someone staring down from the wall above his mother's collection of Hummel figurines.

Did you see that? I wove contempt for the Catholic Church together with bad taste in both furniture and collections. This was how I was raised. La-Z-Boy chairs, comfortable sofas were for people who lacked muscle tone and intelligence. The furniture in our house had a designer pedigree. Because of my Uncle Brendan's rip-offs, we owned models that were in the Museum of Modern Art. Glass tables framed in steel, leather chairs with springs that ripped your tights, dining room chairs that encouraged perfect posture, designer lamps that replaced overhead lighting because who needed that and if you did there had better be a dimmer, graced our house with its white walls and good bones.

Books were to be read at all times, but no Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, or God forbid, Gone with the Wind. No dolls, especially Barbie. Barbie was an example of fetishizing the female body. No Easy-Bake Oven or any fake cooking toys. You were allowed to bake in the actual kitchen notwithstanding the number of accidents, sugar burning, legs scalded by lemon pudding, Julia Child's directions for a cake that took three days to bake, a fire caused by sugar boiling and then blazing, sweets were permitted only if you made them. As soon as we were left alone, minors were boiling fudge. Board games were allowed, but no one had the time or patience to play them. He was writing novels; she was designing houses.

My mother was prescient in her Mediterranean cooking, olive oil, lots of garlic, pesto in the seventies, little meat, under-salting, plain yogurt. I lived for meals served by chubby mothers containing preservatives and fat, artificial flavors, and lots of white stuff. She went to the farmers market when no one but retailers and restaurant owners knew they existed. We had freshly killed chickens raised organically, hamburger meat ground from sirloin, and bread baked at home. Always two fresh vegetables, frozen occasionally, and a salad. The dressing was homemade vinaigrette. Nothing else. Once, she made beef broth from scratch, bones boiled, egg shells used to clarify, and endless cooking that resulted in something a step up from bouillon. There may have been tears, but probably not.

No candy. No television except on weekend nights and then limited. Never daytime television unless you ironed stuff or were dying of something incurable. No wrapping paper or stuff like paper cups or plastic bags. I longed for her to make me lunch wrapped in Saran Wrap and then a plastic bag, little bags of potato chips (absolutely not!), all of it in a brown paper lunch bag that the other mothers favored. The only time my mother made me lunch after I complained was when she took two pieces of her non-Wonder-bread bread, skipped mayonnaise (only homemade), put two pieces of roast lamb in-between the bread and an apple, and put the whole thing in a large sized A&P brown paper bag. While my classmates unpacked their dainty white bread sandwiches, chips, and cookies, I threw the offending meal into the trash and borrowed lunch money.

Meanwhile, intelligence was valued much more than kindness. Anyone who had failed to visit the great museums of Europe and America failed to have read every single book in the canon, failed to be thin, failed to be funny, failed to cook gourmet healthy food, failed to be capable of carrying on several conversations at once, failed to keep up was, obviously, a failure. Actually, they were quite gracious to outsiders, but their daughters were definitely expected to meet those standards. Some of their rules made sense, no two-piece bathing suits, no frilly things, nothing condensed either soup or books (no Reader’s Digest), no loafers (?), no fried food, no soda, no instant coffee, must be ground from beans and filtered through a Melita.

And yet, they were amazing. Compassionate, liberal, deeply concerned with the downtrodden, capable of showing great love, and witty beyond belief. They had a work ethic that went beyond their careers, helping others with great skill and lending their brilliance to anyone who asked. I miss them very much and am grateful for the things they taught me, except for the part where you are never quite enough, and one day, you realize you want to die rather than try anymore. You drink. You stop. You get help, and you gradually recognize you might never be thin, smart, or fast enough, but they love you anyway.

Yes, I am the elitist daughter of elitist parents. I try not to judge anyone, yet my friends sometimes become speechless, afraid they will mangle a sentence in front of me. I dismiss people based on their perceived taste, their political views, and sometimes their accents. When I returned from Rutgers University after a year of living with my Elizabeth, New Jersey roommate, my parents reacted to the way I spoke as if I'd admitted to shooting heroin. "No," my mother said. "You will stop that immediately."

I was introduced to famous and gifted poets, writers, and artists early in my life. The standards set in my childhood have changed, yet I will never understand people who think collections of things, naked angel babies, trolls, pictures of cats or dogs in outfits, ugly houses, overstuffed furniture, and knick-knacks are a good idea. Here in northern Michigan, I strive to conceal how certain activities, hunting, snowmobiles, game night, and book clubs, strike me as sad. I must admit to a penchant for Housewives, potato chips, and the quiet kindness of other people who may or may not collect things I think are stupid.

—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach

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