I Swore I Wouldn't Sound Like My Mom

I was inspired to write this hub when I was outside and my neighbor was yelling at her daughter. The words I was hearing were not very polite, uplifting or encouraging coming from a mother. This brought to mind another thought of listening to my sister talk about trying to work with her co-workers.

So many times when trying to work on a project with others, personalities get in the way. Instead of accepting each personality, has something to contribute, the project gets waylaid by expectations from each member of how or what the others should do or even think.

So many times this leads to harsh words spoken, feelings get hurt and there you go, end of working together.

Harsh words: I grew up with the words of wisdom from my elders-“if you can’t say something nice, then it is best to not say anything at all.” These words usually came out at a time when I got frustrated with how my siblings were working with me as we did our chores.

I have learned through the years, words spoken hold a great deal of power. They can build a person up or tear them down. I have also learned to look for ways of giving praise and saying thank you, these words go a long ways toward getting a project done. Some people find this easier to do than others.

In my observations, I have found speaking harshly or negatively is a habit that the person doing so has cultivated in their life. These people usually have no idea they have a critical spirit that is interfering in them being able to work with others. They also have no idea the impact of their criticism has on the people they are trying to work with.

I had reached this point in writing this hub and proceeded to overwhelm myself. I sent the first few sentences to my daughter, Gabby, to read and see if she could tell me where in the world I was going.

“Soooo, you are thinking about how to get your daughters to work together,” she comments. Well, great deal, I really didn’t have them in mind, but now that she mentioned it, I guess if the shoe fits….

All three of my daughters live pretty close to each other. At first glance you would think this would be a good thing. Hmmm, for some reason they still have a knack for offending each other. Then they call me! I love it. I live 1200 miles away and so can get away with interfering while not really interfering. Mother’s prerogative. Right?

The next thing I know Gabby has proceeded to go over to her sister’s home and share with her what mom is trying to write. A phone call later, I have two daughters and a granddaughter giving me a string of “traditional correction (my word) punishment, (their word) practices.

As a child growing up harsh words, spoken by us children were not said in front of our parents. If we were fighting while doing our chores, my mom would come up with another chore for us to do. This chore had to be done as a team, each person saying thank you, please and your welcome throughout the chore. If you didn’t cooperate another chore was added. I can remember thinking to myself while I grew up, “I’m sure not going to do this to any kids I have.” Sure!

My own children learned early, harsh words were not appropriate. But for some reason when they thought mom wasn’t listening, I would hear them yell something inappropriate. Usually these words were something like “You’re stupid,” “Liar”, “Shut up”. These particular words usually led to dish soap being used to wash their mouth out. Again, Hmmm. Yep, “I’m not going to do that to my kids.” But you know it seemed to work on me and my siblings, so it was used until it didn’t work. My eldest son would eat anything so soap didn’t bother him at all. Most likely I would hear him say something like,

“Hey, mom that was pretty good, do you have anymore?”

Cleaning the kitchen was one of the chores the girls recalled. Raising my five children, I would do like mom did raising her eight children. I grew up with one sibling washing and rinsing the dishes and another drying them and putting them away. If we would begin to squabble about how the other one was doing, Mom would come along and begin emptying the cupboards. Next thing you knew, instead of a few dishes, you were doing loads of dishes.

“Thank you girls for helping me clean out the cupboards and rearrange,” mom would begin to comment. The rest of the chore included these words, Please, Thank you, You’re Welcome, and they had better be said sweetly, with a smile, or we started all over.

Well, my dear darling girls reminded me that this was something they remember having to do when they were growing up. Imagine that! Yep, “I’m not going to do that to my kids.”

“I remember having to clean the toilet bowl with a toothbrush for using a potty mouth,” tl recalls. I think they better be glad it was only a toilet bowl, it could have been an outhouse, courtesy of my grandmother’s way of taking care of a potty mouth since she didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was grown up.

“Oh, yea, what about slamming doors,” Pie injects. “I remember getting mad at mom and running to my bedroom slamming the door behind me. Mom caught up with me and I had to gently open and close that door umpteen times. Worked for me, so I had to use it on my kids!” This practice again was courtesy of my grandmother. Her screen door had a spring to help keep it closed. That spring made more trouble for us young kids. You had to hold the door and close it gently or it would slam shut. It didn’t take too many times of opening and closing the door without slamming it to remember to hold until it was totally closed.

“Well, what about stomping down the stairs in a fit of anger?” asks Gabby. “That was pretty good exercise! I remember having to quietly walk up and down the stairs about ten times and if you stepped harder than mom thought you should, you got to start all over.” Yep, another one of them corrections my mother used on her kids. Running up or down the stairs was a no, no in our home growing up.

“I remember mom’s sister taking our toys and putting them in a garbage bag, because we wouldn’t put them away,” Pie recalls.

“How about playing a card or board game and getting into an argument?” recalls Gabby.

“Oh, yea, there went that game,” Pie recalls.

After taking the game and putting it up, I would sit the guilty culprits on the couch, holding hands and smiling at each other. This was done under mom’s supervision of course. It didn’t take long for the temper to cease as soon they were laughing at having to hold hands and smile at one another.

“I remember when Little Man and I would get in an argument, we would have to sit on the couch and hold hands until mom said we could get up,” Pie comments, “and that wasn’t enough! Before we could go play, Mom made us hug each other.”

This tactic worked well until they became a little older. When they were able to write, I resorted to having them write an apology to who ever they were angry with and giving that sibling a hug as they handed them the apology.

Next thing I knew, my granddaughter was chirping in. I guess she caught up with what Gram, Auntie and Mom were talking about.

“When my brother and I start fighting over feeding the dog, we have to pick up their pooh,” she says. “Now that is yuck!”

The good one from her was when Gabby asked what she would do if she had kids and they were fighting over who would wash the dishes and who would put them away.

“Well, I would clean out the cupboards and make them wash all of the dishes in the kitchen,” she replies. “That is what my mom does to my brother and me!”

My son-in-laws entered our family years before marrying my daughters. Pie’s husband recalled how I would do the laundry while the kids were at school. I would pile the laundry on the couch for the kids to fold and put away when they got home.

“We couldn’t do anything until those clothes were folded and put away,” he recalls. “Even though they weren’t my clothes, I would help get them folded so we could do what we wanted to do.”

As a grandmother now it is interesting to see how traditional advice and values are being past on.