There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me

by Brooke Shields

  Mom looked to the far end of the nursery and saw two cribs at the back a bit apart from the others. One crib was faced out and the other was faced to the wall. It was an unusually busy time for birthing babies and space was tight. In those days the children being placed up for adoption were put in cribs and then turned away from the glass so the birth mothers couldn’t see the babies. It was thought to make the transition less fraught for the mother. It just so happened that I was in one of the two cribs against this back wall. Standing alone and looking at two cribs—one facing out and the other facing the wall, not knowing which baby was hers and fearing that somebody had put her baby up for adoption—my mother went insane. She began screaming and rushed to read the names on the two cribs.

  A nurse burst in to calm my mom and asked her what she needed.

  “I want to see my baby!” she kept screaming. “I want to see my baby!”

  “Calm down, miss!”

  “I will not calm down until I see my baby! You have all been lying to me about squeaky doors and perfect babies and I don’t believe any of it!”

  “OK, OK! Please relax. Here is your baby girl.”

  The nurse reached into the crib not facing the wall and, staring only at my mother, lifted me up. My mother gasped because I was totally covered in meconium. I guess I had not been checked on in a while and had managed to cover myself in the blackish green poop that comes out of newborns. This was, in fact, a sign that I was healthy, but the nurse almost dropped me the moment she saw that she was holding a slippery little, flailing dark-green monster.

  “This is the squeaking door, Mrs. Shields. I’ll clean her up and you can hold her.” From that moment on, Mom never wanted to let me out of her sight again.

  • • •

  They released us from the hospital once I gained a bit of weight. Breast-feeding didn’t seem to be popular in 1965, and I guess my mother never even considered it. I was put on Enfamil and sent home.

  Evidently, Mom said that my eyes had remained closed since birth. She brought me home and waited but began to get worried because my eyes stayed shut. Well, Mom brought me back to the doctor, who said, “Oh, you want her eyes open?”

  And with Mom’s nod he took his big middle finger and thumb and flicked as hard as he could on the bottom of my feet. My eyes popped right open and I let out a wail and started to cry.

  “There you go.”

  How rude! I had been born two months premature, so maybe I was just not ready to actually see the big world yet. You try getting out of a cozy bed two months before it’s time to get up!

  My father wanted to name me after his mother but Mom preferred the name Brooke. She had seen a beautiful photo of a woman in a field, and the photographer was named Christian Brooks. She thought Brooke with an e instead of an s would be a pretty name for a girl. When the time came for me to be baptized, the priest said that because there was no saint named Brooke, I could not be christened Brooke. Mom says she immediately responded by saying: “Well, put an a at the end of Christ. Is that Catholic enough for ya?” I assume the name Christa also had something to do with the photographer, but her reported response to the priest made for a better tale.

  So I was born Brooke Christa Shields and baptized Christa Brooke Shields. After the christening my mom and dad went to P. J. Clarke’s and placed me on the bar and toasted me. My husband and I have done the very same thing with both our daughters. Celebrating with a beer to the baby on the bar has become a bit of a tradition. I have never been called Christa but always liked it as a middle name.

  My mother was terrified of SIDS. A politician’s child had recently died of crib death, and Mom could not get the thought out of her mind. She slept with me literally strapped to her chest and repeatedly held up a mirror to my mouth and nose to make sure I was breathing. The steam from my breath became her source of calm. I was a terrible eater and ate only half an ounce every half hour. Mom said she would premake countless bottles filled with half-ounce bottles of formula in a cooler next to her bed and feed me accordingly. This went on for some time, and after about six months, I was transferred to my wooden crib. I soon started pulling myself up in my crib and used the rails as a teething surface.

  Mom and I became obviously physically bonded and my dad remained seemingly less knowledgeable and comfortable with his baby. One day Mom passed by the bathroom while my dad was in the shower. I was in need of my bath and Mom suggested to my dad he shower with me and get me cleaned up at the same time. He took me and a bit later Mom passed by the bathroom again only to see my dad standing in the shower holding my little naked body but now wearing his blue boxers. Another time Mom went to church and left me alone with my father. We were using cloth diapers in those days, and when Mom returned I was lying completely naked in bed, and a huge pile of diapers lay on the floor. When asked what had happened, Dad explained he knew not how to clean the mess and that he had used the diapers like tissues. Needless to say, that month’s diaper supply had been depleted. Clearly my father was in over his head with regard to being a dad.

  Dad found out soon enough, though, that the mother of his child could be quite a troublemaker. During one argument between my mom and dad it somehow happened that Mom’s bra had gotten torn. For the first time ever, Mom had bought a sexy red-lace bra, which she was wearing at the time of the fight. In addition to the torn bra, a chair got broken. It was rare for my parents to fight in any sort of physical way, so this must have been a pretty big argument or Mom was the one to do all the damage. A broken chair and a ripped brassiere were hardly out of the realm of possibility for her to destroy. In any case, on this particular Saturday it all happened and my father stormed out of the apartment. Where he was going, she didn’t know, which must have made her even angrier.

  My mother was not satisfied. She wanted to have the final word. So she decided to tie the torn red-lace remnants of her bra onto the spindles of the destroyed chair and hand-deliver them to the Racquet and Tennis Club of Manhattan. Now, the Racquet and Tennis Club was one of the oldest all-male clubs in New York City. It is an incredibly old-school, traditional institution, complete with leather-lined libraries for cigar smoking and backgammon and huge oil paintings of elaborate foxhunt scenes or dead geese lined up under the watchful eye of a skilled pointer. Women were not allowed to be members and never set foot past the entrance.

  Well, my mother marched right up to the club, walked through the doors, with the broken wooden chair strategically draped with red-lace undergarments boldly labeled “Mr. Frank Shields from Mrs. Frank Shields,” and deposited it all right in the middle of the lobby.

  I’m sure the staff had no idea of how to react. What was this? I guess they decided it was an art installation of some kind for one of their members. It was the sixties. Packages, evidently, were to be claimed during the workweek only, so, as my mother told the story, this symbol of public humiliation sat in the middle of the lobby for the world to see over the entire weekend. Dad’s mortification would be witnessed by many an esteemed colleague. His shame had thus been initiated. It remained true that while Mom wanted to be accepted by high society, she equally loved challenging its social mores and sexist rules. My dad’s version of the fur-coat story had arrived in full force; this should have sent up the proper red flags.

  Looking back, I imagine that this incident was just one of many outrageous antics. It was not, however, enough to break them up—yet. I speculate that there was a power to her that he somehow could not resist. I believe that it was not dissimilar to the type of power his own mother wielded. No doubt my mother was unlike anyone else in his life.

  • • •

  He had relief, though, because he often traveled for work. Dad left once more for Europe and began writing letters to Mom from abroad.

  What transpired over the next few months is documented by letters sent to my mother in very small, neat handwriting, usually on hotel stationery. In the lett
ers from Dad, he expresses his confusion and sadness about the fact that his father had not been to visit Mom and the baby. His family was not the kind to have many family get-togethers. In his writing, Dad seems hurt by the fact that his father was not reaching out to me and Mom more. My father also worried that Mom was not getting any help. He said many times that he was concerned that she wasn’t getting out enough and that she should really ask for some help so as to spend time on herself.

  He also promised to give my mom more money when he could get it, and a real wedding in a church one day. At times he wrote of wiring money and wishing he could be sending more but Italian banks and the like were less than helpful. I am struck by the tenderness that Dad had for “little Brookie” and how sad he seemed to be away. He seemed quite sincere about wanting things to work out.

  • • •

  In one of his more vulnerable correspondences, he comments on the joy he felt receiving a Valentine’s Day card from my mom and me. He said it made his day and he was sorry to be missing being with his “girls” on what had always been my mom’s favorite holiday. It is heartbreaking to hear his vulnerable tone in the correspondences only to discover that he was about to experience a devastating blow.

  Imagine my own shock at reading Dad’s next letter, postmarked February 16, 1966, which read:

  Mumsy, after receiving such a wonderful Valentine’s cable, to receive your cable of this morning was a real shock and suddenly I am unable to think clearly. I have a feeling of loss, a sense of nothingness, no aspirations, no idea of what to do, and as a whole a very sick feeling inside. Up until this morning I didn’t consider the impact of the meaning of divorced, which I have brought on myself, my wife, and baby. I am trying to reason that the decree is merely a legal document and not an emotional state which cannot be reversed or resolved. I wanted to start clean but I didn’t see the necessity legally of anything more than a separation. . . . I want to be happy with the two of you as a family and I am not going to change my thinking. I think of you as my wife this time away from New York, and I hope to God that I can redeem myself in your eyes so as to bring us back together. . . . I am trying to put out of my mind the trip to Mexico. I just don’t know. . . .

  He was clearly confused and did not know how to continue. He did love my mom and they did have a child together, so maybe he believed a separation would help. But he seemed to be fooling himself. My mom was not going to wait for what she was feeling would be the inevitable. She feared they would not last, and although convinced my father wanted to try to do the right thing, she thought he would not be happy in the long run.

  I have no letters from Mom to my dad during this time, but I found some diaries in which Mom wrote about how ashamed my father was of her: “I am a burden to him financially and especially socially,” one entry read. “He’s ashamed to be with me in public for fear I may say something that might embarrass him.” Another one read, “I am too opinionated and don’t act right in public. I give a cheap appearance. ‘Cheesy’ was the word he used.”

  She told me Dad would get exasperated with her and her “deez, dems, and doz” way of speaking. She felt my father was ashamed to be with her. She writes that he wanted her to be a different person with a different background. I believe Mom was afraid he would eventually reject her, and she wanted to save herself the pain.

  She knew deep down that my father loved us but wanted a different life. Maybe she really was doing this for him, to set him free. I can’t say what is actually the truth or what my mom’s real insecurities were, but for some reason, she made a preemptive decision. My mother probably heard my father use the word separation and just made a rash choice.

  She flew to Mexico, where it used to be the very easiest place to obtain a divorce on your own. Mom left me with Lila and got the divorce by herself. By the time Dad returned from Europe, my mom had declared herself a single mother.

  What is so shocking and sad is how stunned my dad appeared by Mom’s pronouncement. I don’t think he was quite ready to be free from my mom, but I wonder if he was secretly a bit relieved.

  Mom’s actions often had an impulsive and self-destructive quality. She saw herself alone, and although I believe she craved love and partnership, she feared she was not worthy and therefore often jumped ship before she could get too hurt.

  Now, however, she had this little baby who couldn’t leave. She had a baby daughter who was completely dependent on her.

  My mother explained to my father that she wanted neither alimony nor any kind of child support other than an education for me. She said she could take care of the two of us somehow but insisted that he send me to school all the way through college.

  I doubt Dad talked about marriage again but they definitely took time to fully disengage with one another. They seemed to find a way to still spend a lot of time together because of me. He helped out when he could and they celebrated some holidays together for a couple of years. In fact I have many photos of us all together while I was a toddler and a young kid. It was as if without the pressure of being married, my dad could relax and love us both. They lived separately but eased out of one another’s lives. I have no idea if it was painful for my mom during this period but I am sure his getting married again would have stung when it happened.

  My father kept true to his word and paid for my entire formal education and was present and beaming on every graduation day.

  So, although the whirlwind of life and the emotions that accompanied the events of 1964 and 1965 were fraught, they did not seem void of love and some version of respect and understanding.

  Chapter Three

  She Could Make It Rain

  Having never really known my parents as a couple, I had no feeling of loss or guilt surrounding their divorce. I would grow up knowing, or at least trying to know, them each independently. From the day I was born, whether they were a couple or not, my mom always made sure that my dad saw me frequently.

  It was clear that my mother wanted my father to have a relationship with me. Even if she herself could not be with him, she wanted me in his life. She would invent ways for him to be forced to see me. Sometimes, if Dad hadn’t seen me in a while, Mom would dress me up in a fancy dress or romper, complete with bonnet or bow and Mary Janes, and take me to the building in which my father worked. She’d do this at the end of his workday. Mom would wait with me just around the corner but with a good view of the building’s entrance. She would watch for my dad to leave, and as he came out of the building, she’d push me out alone and say, “Go, go see Daddy!” She told me she’d duck out of sight and I’d toddle over to him. Slightly surprised and a bit nervous for my safety, he’d scoop me up in his arms and search for my mom. When she popped out into view, he’d use his naturally booming voice and exclaim, “Jesus Christ, Teri, what the hell are you doing?”

  After the ambush, I’m not sure if we all spent some time together or they just chatted on the street for a bit. I’m sure my dad usually had some place to go, but Mom was satisfied just knowing she made him see his baby girl. There was never a doubt in my mind that he was my dad.

  I even have pictures of both Mom and Dad strolling me down Fifth Avenue during the Easter parade. In the photos I’m about two or three, and we look like a perfectly intact, happy family. Mom is chic in her black-and-white plaid skirt and cropped jacket with a white pillbox hat. Dad looks dapper as always, in a suit and tie. I am in a navy wool double-breasted coat and a white hat. My white tights were a bit twisted or saggy and dirty at the knees, but my black patent-leather Mary Janes are shiny. Together, they were a stunning couple and always turned people’s heads. They didn’t look divorced.

  But even though the photos make us look as if we were just like any other family, the truth was very different. From the time my parents divorced, my life with my mother was very unique. Surprisingly, being a single mom in New York City proved to be more convenient for Mom than one would think.
I did have occasional sitters, and my godmother often watched me, but for the most part, I was portable and a welcomed accessory to any of my mother’s fashion-forward outfits. Sporadically, she brought me by bus out to visit her mom and siblings in Paterson and Newark but, for the most part, we remained in good old Manhattan. Mom took me to parties with her various fashion-industry friends. We went to dinner clubs and movies and even the theatre, and I would either play or sleep and was obviously happier being with her than with a sitter. I was simply most comfortable being physically around my mother.

  Although my mother managed to stay in contact with many of the friends she made while with my father, she also maintained the friendships she had cultivated outside his Waspy circles. She made new friends as well, many who were in the fashion industry or entertainment of some kind. She befriended photographers and stylists, designers and artists. She was developing a very colorful group of talented people from diverse walks of life. In any given week we would be visiting a huge mansion out in the Hamptons as well as going to a downtown evening in a jazz club or performance-art space or photo exhibit. She frequented all walks of life, with me in her arms and then on her hip. It appeared Mom began forging her own path.

  I was one of those babies you see out late at night in restaurants and being passed around the table to be cooed at or brought into the bathroom to be changed on the sink. I slept soundly, lulled by the low din of voices and silverware clinking. Everybody made sure to write “Don’t forget to bring the baby” on invites to dinner parties and cocktail gatherings. I had very little fear of new people, and although most bonded to my mom, I would gladly go smile at a stranger. Some things never change. . . .