Mom's Birthday

I've spent some time wondering what I might write about Mom this year. I feel I'm overlooking something that would be obvious had the world not gotten so weird of late, but there it is. Then I remembered a Facebook meme sent by my friend, Vivien. 

My reply was that either this was addressed to younger people or it was a British more than American thing. I could only identify a few things I remembered Mom as saying, and quite I few I couldn't even imagine her ever coming up with.  She may have said "Because I said so" or "Ask your Dad", I'm sure she said the thing about taking someone's eye out. 

Were you born in a barn?  This is a saying that circulated in the US not long before Mom died. She would have said "Shelley! Mind your manners. When ____ we do ____.

Move away from the TV, you'll get square eyes. She may have said I would hurt my eyes, but 'square eyes' wasn't mentioned. She often encouraged me to 'sit up straight'.

You wait until your Dad gets home. Mom was the primary disciplinarian in our house. She may have said something like Your father will not be impressed with this.

Who's SHE? the cat's mother? I think this is quite British. I gather - reading between the lines - that it's considered rude to refer to someone as 'she' if they are present. I am guessing they are supposed to always be referred to by name. No idea if this also applies to He. 

Do as I say not as I do. I think Mom may have said this a couple of times, but more along the lines of sheepishly acknowledging she didn't set a good example than to issue orders.

Eat your crusts, you'll get curly hair.  I'm not sure if this is a stick (that curly hair is bad) or a carrot (that curly hair is desirable). In any case, I've always liked bread crusts - in fact they are my favourite part - and I spent a good part of my childhood in hair curlers.

There is no such word as CAN'T  I don't believe she said this, but rather "You won't know unless you try."

Say 'Pardon', not 'What'  Pardon would have been considered an affectation where and when I grew up. She would have instructed me to say 'Excuse me? I didn't catch what you said'. I gather from various reading that here in Britain 'Pardon' is working class or perhaps regional (Bill's daughter Helen says it since marrying a man from Manchester). As I recall people here seem to say 'Sorry' for when they can't hear or when they bump into people. 'Excuse me' seems to be used when they want someone to most out of their way. We say that for the same purpose in the States, only followed by 'please'.

I've told you a thousand times   I'm sure Mom must have said this - doesn't every parent? - but I can't remember her saying it. She might ask me 'What have I said about...?'

What did your last slave die of? Mom didn't employ sarcasm, she was just straightforward. I do remember the first time she said 'Get it yourself'. I thought I'd die of shock, but at 12 years of age it was long overdue.

I want never gets  Not an American saying. However, I was definitely taught not to ask for things. I could say what I would like to have in a general way, or issue a wish list for Christmas or Birthdays, but not to whine and wheedle to my parents all the time - that was the surest way NOT to get something. And it was supremely bad manners to ask anyone else to give me anything; they had to offer first. When we were in funds I was allowed to chose one treat at the supermarket and I remember eating a basket of cherry tomatoes or a bag of cherries in the back seat on the way home. I expect I could have had candy, but I didn't like it nearly as much, which is very much down to the way they raised me. Being taught not to ask for things has sometimes proven to be a handicap. I have wondered, would  they would have trained a boy in the same way?

Back in my day... Mom's childhood was different - and in some ways far more privileged - than mine. Her father's family was well known and respected in southern Oklahoma. Her father was a road contractor and she and Grandmother travelled with him for at least the first five years of Mom's life - they lived in a tent until then. This sounds hard but they had servants AKA as 'coloured help'. I often heard about Gussie, who brought Mom a chocolate bar and a bottle of Coca Cola for her breakfast in bed. She said Gussie spoiled her. There were times when they were quite poor, but everyone was during the Depression. When Grandmother married a second time to an astute businessman Mom had quite a few luxuries again. But I always understood Mom made her own luxuries through her creative talents. I don't remember complaining about having it hard, because she was so clever about making things pretty or special in a way that other kids' Mom's didn't seem to know how to do. 

What's for dinner, mum? Shit with sugar on. Mom didn't swear beyond 'damn' or 'hell' and only then when really annoyed. She did sometimes fix S.O.S. which in military parlance was 'Shit On a Shingle' (meat in white sauce on bread). She never called it anything other than 'chipped beef on bread'.

No pudding unless you eat your dinner We rarely had pudding - dessert - and I don't expect there were many times I didn't eat my dinner; a lot of the time I asked for seconds. The only time we routinely had dessert was at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes she did make pudding (AKA custard in Britain) for a snack or a treat, but not as part of a meal.

If your mate asked you to jump off a cliff, would you? She may have said this, I don't recall. What I do remember was complaining about what other kids were allowed to do. Her reply was that I wasn't Jill or Sarah, I was Shelley J__ B___. I recall one time when she was trying to get me to conform to something she said, Why not be more like Joanne or Mary? My smart reply was because I was Shelley J__ B____... She laughed.

It'll all end in tears  She'll have said something to this effect, but not these words. 

It's like Blackpool bloody illuminations in here.  I'm sure I never heard of Blackpool until moving to Newcastle - and having been once I can report that there are a lot of neon lights there. I'm guessing this is a complaint about too many lights on in the house. I don't recall us being very conscientious about the electric bill in this way, though I expect we should have been. 

Mom wasn't at all like the person described in these sayings. She was tough as nails in a determined sort of way, but decidedly a Southern lady in all her endeavors. Her hardest battle was to try to make me into one.