Stuff Our Moms Said

We should probably stick with our standard story “Sorry Mom. I didn’t hear you”. If we admit to remembering ANY of these other things our moms said, that confession pretty much kills our alibis. But just between you and me – you know you heard many of these:

#10 – “Because I’m the Mom; THAT’S why!” Okay – no arguing with that and definitely a bad choice for mimicking practice, unless you also like to practice sounding like someone in pain.

#9 – “Don’t make me come in there!” We’re not trying to make you come in here. We’re trying to goof off and ignore you Mom; which is pretty fun – until you come in here.

#8 – “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”. You can completely ignore this one. That will ensure you’ll have plenty of scars and childhood photos showing your arm or leg in a cast. And don’t worry about knocking out those expensive teeth; you’ll lose them all later anyway.

#7 – “Who do you think you are?” Warning; rhetorical question. PLEASE don’t attempt to answer this one.

#6 – “What part of no don’t you understand?” See number seven above. Disclaimer; may possibly be answered if you are a third year law student, but do so only from a safe distance.

# 5 – “I don’t care who started it; I’m going to finish it!” This is a clear signal to all participants in the current fracas to run for cover.

#4 – “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. I never really believed this one. I just figured Mom had the tree well hidden because every time I had some expense related to a school activity, she magically produced the needed cash from somewhere.

#3 – “I cooked it which means you’ll eat it and you’ll like it!” And I did – except for the Lima Beans; we actually compromised on that one. As I moved into my teenage years, this saying morphed into “don’t eat the whole thing. There ARE other people in this family you know!”

#2 – “Someday you’ll appreciate everything I’m doing for you”. Solid truth. It only takes until you run out of food, money and clan underwear to realize just how true this is.

And the #1 thing moms said – “I don’t care what everyone else is doing; I’m not their mother”. An “arms length” statement of “I love you like my next breath and will not allow you to go out riding around all night with a bunch of reckless, underage drinking “friends” who don’t care about you and who’s moms don’t care enough about them to tackle them”. This mom might have also quoted Proverbs 13:20 to you.

Isn’t it funny how, after living for so many years as “grown-ups” on our own, we still frequently hear our moms’ voices admonishing us or speaking their pearls of wisdom as we deal with various situations or events in our lives. Funnier yet is how we catch ourselves repeating, nearly verbatim, their words of “Mom Sense”. Fast forward a generation and you would probably hear your children speaking the same words. It’s like our moms’ words subliminally become part of our verbal DNA. That’s the only excuse we can offer as to why we can all remember stuff our moms said, because we can never admit we were actually listening.