I learned early in life not to tell my mother that I was bored because I had nothing to do. She quickly found ways to keep me busy, cleaning the house. At the time I thought she was mean, but I now know she was teaching me valuable life skills.
I was young when I learned to make my bed and clean my room. But it didn’t end there. Soon I was also vacuuming the living room and sweeping the kitchen. I even scrubbing the tub. Move over Cinderella!
By the time I was 10 my parents trusted me to be in charge of my two younger siblings, cook a meal and cleanup afterward.
As I grew, my responsibilities grew. By the time I was 14, I was baking a huge batch of cookies every Saturday. My brothers and sisters helped me to eat most of those cookies by the next weekend.
My mother had me out in the garden pulling weeds. We picked raspberries until our fingers and mouths turned red. We shelled peas and snapped beans, but we weren’t allowed to eat most of them. Oh no. Before our very eyes they were plunged into vats of boiling water and then frozen for winter meals.
My mother tricked me into eating breakfast. When I protested that porridge and eggs weighed too heavilyy on my stomach, she made a delicious eggnog that I grudgingly gulped as I dashed for the door on my way to basketball practice. Talk about tenacious! She never let up on me. (Thank goodness!)
After school, she expected me to help put supper on the table. Couldn’t she see that I was asleep on my feet? So I bartered with her — I could nap while the rest of the family ate, then eat alone before I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Boy, did I fool her! I could eat a whole bowl of cold potatoes if I wanted to. Heaven to a hungry girl!
But the meanest I ever remember her being was one night when I was 17. Friends roared up in an old car and asked me to come out for the evening. I asked Mom if I could go along. Mom threw the responsibility back on me; she made me make the decision. In the end, I was forced to tell my friends I couldn’t come because I needed to finish my homework. She made me stand on my own two feet.
Yes, my mother made me what I am today. Thank you, Mom, for being so “mean”. I needed every bit of it.
