Pick One: Mother Knows Best (or) It’s All Her Fault
It’s not as if I think I’ve been a perfect mom. Far from it. I’ve made (and will continue to make) plenty of mistakes. But I thought I’d covered the basics pretty well by adhering to the broken record approach to parenting – you know, the obsessive repeating of “treat others like you’d want them to treat you,” “the inside of a person is more important the outside,” “always take the high road,” etc., etc., etc. Indeed, I routinely sent my kids out the door with repeated reminders to “Remember to use ‘please’” and “Don’t forget to thank the carpool mom,” and I hounded them with my no-wiggle-room thank you note policy (always and ASAP).
Little did I realize, then, that I had neglected to pass on a critical chunk of maternal wisdom. But the other day my female-offspring-who-shall-remain-nameless-here called to set me straight. After she showed up at 4:20 for a 5:00 job interview, she was puzzled that the person she was meeting was clearly annoyed. When I tried to explain that while it’s important not to be late, there is such a thing as being too early, she shot back with “I can’t believe you never told me that!” Seems I must have skipped over this nugget of motherly advice in my annoying insistence on always leaving plenty of time to get somewhere. Who knew?
Fortunately, when she wondered out loud what other pearls of mom wisdom I had forgotten to impart, the only thing we came up with was that I had never told her to throw out her (bacteria attracting) mascara after a few months. But I have to admit that this whole exchange left me wracking my brain for what other little-but-important things I might have missed.
So, help me out here: what’s the best piece of mother-knows-best wisdom your mom passed on to you and/or you are passing on to your kids?
Comments
The sooner you clean up the mess, the better and more easy. Those left for too long end up being tougher to deal with.
**This works well with both physical messes (like cheese melting on the counter) and personal messes (which I don't have to explain).
Always put on fresh underwear in the morning cuz you never know if you are going to get into an accident whereby EMT personnel need to strip you down to your bare essentials.
I had this fight with my mom too. The only maternal wisdom she had ever passed down was, "always wear a bra under a t-shirt." So, we came up with 2 more:
1. When going on a job interview, bring a pen.
2. Keep driving, since I never drink and drive, if I'm always driving then that means I'm never drinking.
Thanks again mom!
My Italian mother's advice to me was basicly summed up into "Why buy the cow if the milk is free"(actually in Italian it's a different way of saying it but that's the main idea) and "what use is it going to college when you're only going to get married and stay at home". Today to my 18 yr.old daughter I say "go to college and buy your own milk".
Don't wear white bras or panties under white shirts or shorts. Wear off-white. They won't show through that way!
Wow, Juju Bean...I can't believe you added that, because would you believe that I just learned that a few WEEKS ago from a saleslady in a store?? I did check with my daughter to make sure she knew that one and somehow she did (and she gave me the old eye roll for good measure!).Thanks for posting! Ciao, Laurie
No problem! I remember my mom telling me that and thinking that beige bras were so old womany looking. I didn't follow her advice until a boy in high school pointed out my white underwear under my shorts. That taught me. Now I don't even own white bras. I don't see the point!
JuJu I Love you. I never knew that and I am daughter #5 of a loud and crazy family of women * 6 nieces, a great-niece and another on the way*( God Bless my poor brother) I will have to pass this wisdom along at our next gathering!
I'm in my 60's now but when I was seven years old my mum said I could make wearing underwear optional,so I found out that it was more comfortable without them.
No underwear from 1951 and still love it.John
