Act like a lady?

The first thought that comes in to my mind of crossing the gender norm is when I was a child my mom constantly telling me to act like a lady. I never understood why she told me that. How was I supposed to act like a lady? What did that mean?

Lets just say when I was younger I was a bit of a tomboy, but in a strange way. It was strange because I loved clothes and dressing up but I refused to brush my hair until the age of ten because I thought there was no point seeing as it it was just going to get messed up again. I guess you could say in some ways I had a thought process of a ten-year-old boy when it came to certain things.

Around the age twelve I was eating lunch with my mom where she was watching me eat my fettuccini alfredo, I looked up at her and said “What?” while holding my fork like a caveman and wiping my face off with my hand.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking though, when you have that first date with a guy that you really, really like at a nice restaurant...you might want to consider going somewhere that you can order a smoothie or something. Drink your dinner, you know? Because if he sees your table manners, sweetie, you're in trouble."

I was pissed. It was clearly her fault for not sending me to manner school right?

As a child I was constantly getting told to eat better, stand up straight, brush my hair, and to stop burping at the dinner table. Luckily I grew out of most of it. I now brush my hair on a daily bases and have toned down the cave man eating habits.