Let me just start by saying that my mother will probably be horrified to read this sentimental Mother’s Day blog, serving up family folklore and declaring her as sage and wise.
But she is – I probably don’t tell her enough.
Quite frankly, how many daughters caught up in their own daily grind of motherhood, careers and life challenges do? There’s daughters missing mothers who silently chastise us all from the sidelines …
Don’t you know what you have here? A mother in your life? What I wouldn’t give to have her voice in my ear.“
Author Fenella Souter agrees. She wrote a compelling article back in 2005 titled “Losing My Mother” reflecting that “mothers can drive daughters mad, I’m told. It seems that even when you’re grown up, they can annoy you like nobody else can. They make you feel a disappointment, self-centered. In turn, daughters blame them for all sorts of things, or wish they had a different one.”
While I wouldn’t swap my mum for all the Queen’s in Sheba, we may have occasionally drawn sighs from each other (truthfully though, it’s more on her part than mine. I like to keep her on her toes!).
Really, I’m incredibly lucky to have drawn my talented mum’s name from the lottery of life. Really, truly … even though she’s looking at me curiously and telling me she’d rather not read her eulogy before she’s pushing up daisies thankyou very much! But I do want her to know I’ve been listening. In fact most of us daughters are listening to our mums, even through our eye rolls and ‘Oh is that the time I’ve got to dash’ excuses. And my mum, I suspect, she listened to her mum along the way too.
You mums – you’ve been there before us, you’ve juggled the balls, battled the critics, defended the tribe, shut the doors, opened the windows, paid the library book fines and fed the masses.
So, thankyou mums.
THANK YOU mum.
You’ve shared some corkers. And I’ve taken them all on board.
Ladies and jellybeans, please raise your brandy glasses for the following slap-on-the-wrists wisdom and sterling pearlers from my mother:-
“You can’t lead a champagne existence on a beer budget”
“Don’t tell your father”
“Please shut the door”
“Eat your beans”
“Because I’m the mum that’s why”
“You can never have too many friends, but you can have too many stickybeaks”
“It’s not becoming to kiss and tell”
“Because I said so”
“There’s no flies on him”
“You don’t have to tell your husband everything”
“Shut the door please”
“He’s all hot air that one”
“I wouldn’t know her if I fell over her in the street”
“Your kids may leave home, but they’ll probably move back again”
“You’re going to have to explain this to your father”
“He doesn’t miss a trick”
“Will someone please shut that door”
“Winter is a bottomless pot of soup on the stove”
“No-one likes a sour puss”
“Volunteer enough to contribute, but not too much that you don’t have a family life”
“Stuff it, I’m having a brandy”
“That one – she has the gift of the gab”
“If you can’t ride your bike there, then it’s out of the question”
“What did your last slave die of?”
“That’s fella’s got tickets on himself”
“Art IS in the eye of the beholder. Behold art whenever and wherever you can””
“Shut. The. Door!”
“One day you’ll reach that stage in your life when you can say No”
“Almost everything can be fixed with furniture glue, staple gun and a sewing machine”
“No kid ever died from a mum saying NO occasionally”
“Life is filled with gradual pleasures”
“Door. Shut the bloody door!”
Why cook for 4 when you can cook for 10?”
“Life can be pretty back to front sometimes”
Thanks for the winsome and wise words over the years mum – I’ve been a diligent apprentice and am already employing several annoying motherly comments of my own.
You’re a bloody marvel! Thanks for the inspiration!
The ‘Listen To Your Mother’ podcast in life has come through loud and clear. From all your offspring!