Thursday Thirteen: The Ones That Mother Gives You

We all have that voice in our head, echoing from days long past. It is especially strong in women, I think, because daughters spend more time with their mothers, and those mom-isms lodge themselves in our brains.

So, 13 things Mom might have told you:


1. Wear clean and mended underwear. Heaven forbid you wreck the car and the medics see that the elastic on your tighty-whiteys is frayed.

2. Have your own money. My mother was quite insistent on this point, and while my husband and I have always had a joint account, I have always had a separate checkbook for myself. When I was working, I paid smaller bills, my car payment, etc., and credit cards are in my name as well as hubby's. Every women should stash away enough money that she can leave if she must. You never know how a man will turn out.

3. Always wear make-up. My mother was big on this - maybe not all mothers are. But an unmade face should never go out in public. Your clothing, too, should be clean and decent.

4. Mind your manners. I'm not sure many people remember this one these days - we seem to have become the most ill-bred bunch of loud-mouthed illiterates the nation has ever produced - but I still say yes ma'am and no sir to the point that I have actually had people I am dealing with on the phone about some issue or another stop the conversation and ask me where I was raised because they usually did not hear such politeness.

5. If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all. I tend to live with this on social media. I notice many people do not. Even an innocuous comment can receive the most vicious and nastiest retort. For the record, I think people who must do that are incredibly insecure in themselves and are only trying to make themselves important by bringing down someone else.

6. Be careful what you wish for. I never quite understood this one, and perhaps because I don't believe in the "law of attraction" I never will - but even so, I try not to wish for bad things. Nor do I wish for an abundance of good things. I generally only want enough, whatever that is.

7. Because I said so. This is actually a good one to use as an adult with other adults, too, only perhaps in other forms. For example, "it is not my policy." Well nobody can break a "policy" even if it is one you made up on the spot. "I'm sorry, it is not my policy to speak to people after 6 p.m." And if you're the boss, well, then "because I said so," is the perfect response to the reluctant employee who doesn't want to do his job the way you want it done. (Though a good boss might listen to the reasons for a change of policy.)

8. If you have a man around, you'll never have nice things. My mother said this a lot because men seem to track in lots of dirt, put glasses on furniture, break dishes, and otherwise ruin "stuff" that women may value. I know I have said this on occasion to my husband: my mother was right, men always break things. Oh dear.

9. I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it. This is actually a horrible and scary threat to a child, but it is, alas, one I heard with some frequency. I prefer things like, "if you don't behave you're, I'll knock you into next week," if one must make such threats. At least being knocked into the future doesn't imply imminent death.

10. I do all this work and this is the thanks I get? Yikes. Yes, mom, you did the cooking and cleaning and we didn't say thank you because you taught us to expect you to do it. That, of course, is not the lesson you wanted to teach but it is what we learned. It's what every girl learns.

11. Don't talk to strangers. I guess I tossed this one completely out the window because I will strike up conversations with anyone if I'm in the mood. I think it is the news reporter in me, or so says my husband. But really, these days, one can't be too careful. You never know what will come out of the other person's mouth (see #4 above, about manners).

12. Marry a man who treats his mother well. This advice worked for me. My husband's family was and is very close-knit.

13. You did it, you deal with it. I'm not sure parents say this today. If they did we wouldn't have helicopter parenting. But my mother told me this. If I made the mess, I had to clean it up. If I started the fight, I had to finish it one way or the other. If I took a job I didn't like, I had to either learn to like it or leave. You get the picture.

What did you mother tell you that you still remember?


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 429th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.