Your Mother Was Right About Everything

Is it only gay men and Jews who have Mommy Issues? I think not,

As you were growing up has there ever been anyone more judgemental, backward thinking, demanding, masochistic, sadistic and what’s more a totally humiliating human being in the world. All of these things and even more so because she was so often right. How many bankruptcies, divorces, broken noses, over-salted soups, hideous tattoos, bad haircuts, and crooked teeth, could have been avoided if we’d only listened to our mothers?

Remember those guys your mother thought were bums in high school? Guess what. They probably turned out to be bums. And wouldn’t we be grateful if today more kids had mothers like ours. Cover your mouth when you cough. Give your seat to the nice lady with all those packages. Think of the neighbours. Don’t run around in restaurants.

Of course they were wrong about a lot of things too. She was that woman who made you buy those creepy shoes, clean your room, clear the table, stop slouching, get off the phone, turn off the lights, kiss the withered cheek of that old lady next door, come in to dinner just when the game was getting really good, finish your dinner before you had dessert. She force-fed you Brussel sprouts and yogurt and stringy brisket. Not to mention the time my mother told me not to get that lilac bikini which with the keen discernment of a16 year old, might have changed my life and possibly the entire course of human history.

Yes, certainly mothers could be wrong. For example, we can cross our eyes and they won’t stay like that. But let’s face it, on the whole they were most often right.

Of course whatever their advice we were just too young to listen. We thought we knew better. And maybe that was good, maybe we did know better. Otherwise we’d all be working at‘'something-to-fall-back-on'- jobs. We’d never have moved more than three blocks from where we were born. We’d all still be watching cowboy movies (which my husband would definitely be in favor of. He can sing every verse of Roy Roger’s ‘A Four Legged Friend') And we’d be dancing to Disco or worse Doing the Mashed Potatoes.

Can you imagine Moses’ mother: “Oy Moishe, you’re saying some verkokte bush catches fire and you go shlepping off. Baruch Hashem,  I spent for those extra swimming lessons." Or Jackson Pollack’s mother: “From this you think you can make a living?”

Likely we wouldn’t have invented anything. "Stop rubbing those sticks together. Fire, schmire, raw meat was good enough for your father." "Jeff, get out of the damn garage. You’ll never make a dime that way." "For goodness sake, Christopher, stay home. You’ll fall off the edge." "Let me get this straight, Toll House, You’re putting chunks of chocolate in your cookie dough, Are you mad? That’s never going to fly.".

Still on the whole I think our bunion free, straight teethed, semi-healthy adulthood might just possibly have its roots in mother’s advice.

Maybe the problem was we all wanted June Cleaver, the archetypal mother. And what we got was Barbara Bilingsley, the wise-cracking, chain smoking actress. But then again were we as cute as the Beaver?

Which reminds me of the Jewish woman who walks into the butcher shop. “I vant a chicken.” When the butcher slaps one on the counter, she picks it up, lifts a wing, then a leg, pinching and smelling it. She bangs it back on the counter, shaking her head. “Ach! This chicken’s no good.” The butcher grimaces and answers. “Lady, could you pass the same test?”

What we got was real people. Disappointing. Flawed. People. But if they were perfect, we probably wouldn’t have written most of the great novels, ventured into new lands, gone up into space. And it certainly would put a lot of therapists out of business.

TURNING POINTS from Crowd-Writing

a book by Shelley Katz

Out Now