Sometime in the second half of first grade she somehow figured out to take out Jules Verne books from the library for me. Not only that, she treated me reading them as something perfectly normal. As far as I can tell I didn’t work up to them - I more or less went from Dick and Jane right to them. I never realized how insightful this was until I had kids in first grade - and by then it was too late.
My parents both have/had a lot of energy, almost of all of which was directed towards raising my sister and me. This had a few negative consequences, but mostly good ones.
My mom, in particular, taught me how to read (even though she doesn’t actually remember this now, I do) and taught me math. She went to bat for me to get the school to put me in accelerated math and science classes when it was clear I would be suffocatingly bored otherwise. She took us to music lessons every single week, which were forty-five minutes away (!) She didn’t censor my reading at all, though that may have been more because she had no idea what to make of the books I brought home…
One kind of random thing this thread made me think of: we didn’t have a whole lot of toys, and almost all the ones we did have were educational (Speak n’ Spell, Legos, etc.). BUT on the rare occasion when I was pining away over a particular toy my mom would get it for me. I still remember, twenty-five years later, the joy of getting the Cabbage Patch Kid and the Sweet Secrets lockets I madly coveted. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important not to spoil kids (and so did my parents), but that occasional indulgence meant all the world to me as well.
She enrolled me in the Dutch Nature Study Club when I was fourteen. She had been a member herself, as a teen, but it wasn’t really something for her. It was for me though. I took to my fellow nature geeks like a tadpole to a pond.
Some of the best memories of my teenhood are with that club. All the bats and frogspawn a girl might need, and all the warm sunsets and frosty sunrises, camping in barns and sleeping in haystacks, playing guitar by the campfire, studying dragonflies on sunny meadows, and surprising wildlife in the wheat, I ever wanted. All the knowledge of plants I needed for my first job I learnt there, and I got over my shyness with boys, too.
She kicked me out of the house every single day to play with my friends outside.
She taught me to cook and clean and gave me responsibilities from a very early age.
She was always big on etiquette and manners, which has really helped me throughout life.
Am I the only one welling up at reading through this thread?
My mom was the picture of late-60’s housewifery. SAHM, she made me and my 3 sibs a bagged lunch every morning before school and had a multi-course meal for the 6 of us on the table every night, where we all ate dinner together. She taught me manners and class. She and my dad treated us like adults and from an early age we were expected to comport ourselves properly in mixed company. My parents received so many unsolicited compliments from strangers in church and at restaurants about how well behaved we all were, it became commonplace. She kept a home that I was proud to invite people to.
She taught me how to balance a checkbook. She drove me to all of my little league games and sat for hours on the uncomfortable aluminum bench stands and watched as I stumbled my way around the field, for 4 years. She taught me by example not to take any shit from anyone, and to question authority in the event of some injustice. She taught me the right way to compose a letter. She taught me how to cook.
She went out of her way to give us everything we needed, and some of the things we wanted, even though in the early days of my dad’s career it took some really creative accounting and juggling to allow us to live a lifestyle that kept up with the Joneses.
There are a lot of things I feel she did wrong, but after reading this thread and really giving it some thought, there are more things that she did right.
I think I’ll give her a call.
My mom let me play in the rain if I wanted to. She let me go swimming in my clothes if I wanted to. She didn’t care if my clothes got dirty or torn. She didn’t make me wear dresses or anything I didn’t want to. I think all that helped me to embrace spontaneity and fun and that it’s more important to do and explore than it is to look a certain way.
Left when I was 3 weeks old. From there, I was adopted by my paternal grandparents and raised by them and my dad, and I had a great childhood because of it.
She has mental health issues and I am thankful I wasn’t raised by her. I met her at 26, and while I know her, we’re not close.
My mom worked hard, spent all her spare time taking me out to movies, parks, skating, or anything else I wanted her to take me out to. She took a vacation day every year on my birthday to take me out to lunch and give me presents from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. Just little things. A cute pair of socks. Some costume jewelry. Stuff like that. We were really poor so this was a big thing.
She made time for me. She read to me. I’ll never forget how she made the voices for “Are You My Mother”. You’d have to be there to understand.
She shielded me from her pain and illness. I never knew how sick she was, and she was sick for about twelve years. When she died I was surprised, but then I heard all the older people talk about how long she’d been suffering. I was shocked, and a little hurt at first but I know why she did it. If I’d known I’d have been miserable, panicked, watching the clock.
Everyone loved her. She never had a bad thing to say about anyone, even my father. I never knew he was a bad man until I was old enough to see for myself.
She wasn’t afraid to talk about personal stuff. We joked about sex and masturbation and tampons and silly stuff. She was a dreamer, and talked about them all the time.
She was always so decent. So kind. Every kid in the neighborhood came to her when they had problems. They came over just to watch the game with her. They came over just to hang out. She always made time for everyone, nothing was an inconvenience to her because she enjoyed the company. All my friends wished she was their mom.
She was morbidly obese but I swear I don’t think I ever heard a single crack from anyone; they all respected her and saw HER, not just her appearance.
I think she was probably the bestest mother in the whole world, and I felt that way before she died just as much as now. She wasn’t perfect. She had issues. Depression, anxiety (like me), passive and not very ambitious. She didn’t care about “finer things”. She just lived.
Mine too. First place she let be got to on my own, besides school.
Also, she never
censored my reading material.
“You’re not my mother, you’re a SNORT!”
(Yeah, I remember that book )
She taught me the value of education. Immediately. She gave birth to me while she was a student in mechanical engineering, at the age of 18, as a single parent. As a toddler I used to sit under her desk and color while she was in class. She graduated when I was 7. I have been in love with the concept and the power of education ever since.
She taught me that girls are every bit as capable and strong and resourceful and independent as boys.
She taught me that just because I do some things better than other people, doesn’t mean I’m better than other people.
She taught me to treat everyone equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, or sexual orientation.
She taught me excellent manners which still serve me well in a variety of social situations.
Re: ‘‘Are You My Mother?’’ I still refer to complex excavation machinery as ‘‘SNORT!’’
My mom taught me to read, to type, to make gravy, to play cards, to entertain brilliantly, to tell jokes like a guy, to take a swing at whatever life presents. She taught me how to sew, how to do page layout for a book, how to write a solid lead for a news story, how to ask a politician a tough question.
She taught me how to punctuate–and that it matters.
She taught me how to run a political campaign.
When I decided to help out the local school integration committee in 1965, she let me go off to an office in the “ghetto” neighborhood and stuff envelopes by myself.
She showed me how to survive a divorce and start a second life.
She showed me that you can keep on learning your entire life–still taking courses in Art History at age 81!
Now she’s showing me how to be brave in the last years of life–I always find myself thinking "This is a tough generation. They licked Hitler and Hirohito at the SAME TIME. "
My mom read to me, bought me books at my birthday and holidays.
She made sure I knew I could grow up to be anything I wanted.
She told me about the world, showed me pictures of her trips to Europe, and taught me to be curious.
She took me to the symphony, the ballet, LOTS of theater (she worked in theater when I was a kid), and every museum she could.
She encouraged me to take arts lessons - I took dance and music and drama and art throughout my childhood.
When I asked her what “gay” meant when I was five years old, she gave me such a low-key answer that I was probably twelve or thirteen before I learned that some people think there’s something wrong with homosexuality.
My mom is awesome.
My mom was my hero. I am not (and never will be) a mother, never could and now I’m too old to try anymore. I miss my mother so much. She died two weeks ago, and I am still reeling from it. I do so appreciate this forum to talk about how wonderful she was.
I grew up on a farm in the middle-of-nowhere South Georgia. Ever hear of Vidalia, Georgia, where the onions come from? We lived right outside of it and grew onions. When I was about 4 or 5, Mom took me out to the onion fields, pulled up a big one, peeled the outer skin off and had me bite it, like an apple. I will never forget that taste - warm from the sun, soft and sweet as can be, with a lingering tastiness at the end. Most kids nowadays shun onions, but I have loved them (at least the sweet ones) ever since. I cherish that memory, because I know it will never be duplicated. When we laid her to rest, we put purple onion flowers in the casket - she loved her life on that onion farm so much.
She was a truly special woman, southern to the core. She taught me how to cook fried chicken and biscuits, collard greens and fried green tomatoes. Hummingbird cake, buttermilk pie. Fresh black-eyed peas from the farmer down the road, shelled sitting on the porch in the glider, gossiping about the neighbors in our small town with my grandmother who lived next door. She grew sweet corn and okra, and the best tomatoes I will ever have.
My mother guided me on a journey through all manner of true southern cooking when I was growing up. In my late teens, seeing my love of cooking, she encouraged me to branch out, and we learned together more ‘exotic’ fare. We were not very well off, but she managed to purchase many now-classic cookbooks that I still cook from. My copies of “Joy of Cooking” and “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” are stained with memorable mishaps we made together, and the margins are filled with our notes. I would save these books in a fire over anything else I own.
She taught me to sit up straight (“Graceful women don’t slouch”) and to address my elders respectfully. “Yes ma’am, no ma’am, thank you ma’am, please” - a mantra I heard time and time again. It’s served me well, and to this day I cringe when I hear a child answer an adult with ‘yeah’ instead of 'yes Ma’am/yes Sir, or at least just ‘yes.’ Uncouth, my mother would say.
My brothers and I were never stifled, but were expected to be polite in the company of adults. We were allowed, though (even encouraged, mainly by our father) to run wild in the barns, stables and fields. We were never scolded for coming home with muddy shoes, filthy clothes, burrs in our hair and frogs in our pockets. We did have to strip outside if we were terribly dirty, and get scrubbed in a washtub of often-chilly water, but one of my fondest memories is of coming into the warm kitchen, all nice and clean, wrapped in a huge terrycloth robe, and eating warm cookies with buttermilk.
Long post, I know, but thank you all for letting me write it. This topic just hit home, coming at just the right time for me. I feel so glad, having written about her. Thanks again for letting me do this.
Pam
My mom taught me how to read. She taught me how to be self-reliant. She taught me how to always keep the bills paid, always keep the lights on, and always keep food on the table.
Damn! Now I’ve got something in my eye…
Yeah. And a hankerin’ to try hummingbird cake.
People keep mentioning that their mother didn’t abort them.
My mom did have one abortion before I came along, when she was dating someone entirely different. I always want to hear all the stories I can about him, as I always consider him my first dad.
I fancy that (and I don’t know if it is true, of course, but I want it to be, so I choose to so fancy) she did indeed abort me, as the time was not right- so I hopped out of that little fleshy bit.
When the time became right, and she was trying for a baby, I slipped right back in to* that* bit of flesh.
She taught me how to read before I started kindergarten. I was reading *Gone With the Wind * in 6th grade. I haven’t spoken to her in nearly 17 years (don’t ever plan to again) but I will always be grateful to her for instilling in me a passion for reading.
Note: it doesn’t have hummingbirds in it! It’s just a tradition in our family (and throughout the south). We had it every Thanksgiving.
You guys are so sweet! Thanks again for letting me share, it really meant the world.
– P