parents
The boundless love a parent has for their child is matched only by their capacity to embarrass them.
"I Love You, Mom" ~ In Prose Form
Some would say she is crazy, insane, bonkers, plum off her rocker. She would say that she lists a little to starboard. But if you ask those who know and love her best, than you would be well-informed that she’s brilliant, amazing, courageous, and so completely nuts that she will drive you to a madness much like her own. She is my strength, my past, my future, and my truest friend and confidante.
Lena FolkertPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesMama Didn't Raise No Damsel
I was eleven years old the day that I successfully changed a tire for the first time. We were on the side of the road next to a bayou in southern Louisiana when our car blew a tire, and my mother seized the opportunity to teach my sister and I yet another survival skill.
Lena FolkertPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesArmpit Biters
Armpit Biters is an odd statement on the surface, I know, but maybe you need to dig a little deeper. Honestly, it doesn’t get any less odd, but we’ll go there nonetheless. Before diving into the philosophical meaning behind such a declaration, let’s take it at face value. Can you even bite an armpit? A pit inherently means a void of some sort exists, not exactly tangible. You cannot bite a hole or a crevice, I think the same logic applies here. We’ll have to make the illogical leap together to move past the fallacies of the literal meaning.
Kevin Alonzo BratcherPublished 3 years ago in Families- Top Story - May 2021
A Gift of Presence
Every person has a certain kind of love language. Some show their love through touch, others through their words. Some show it through gifts while others show it through actions. My mother’s love language is presence. Being there. Showing her support by showing up.
Megan ClancyPublished 3 years ago in Families Mom? What Does It Mean When—?
When I was a little girl, my mother was the smartest person in the world. She knew everything. She taught me to love reading by being a good example and I was reading at a high level before I even started first grade.
Paula ShabloPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesHot Lips and High Standards
My Mom entered the world in the 1920’s. This period was a time of economic depression on a high level. My Mom’s blood father was a womanizer, so he left my beautiful grandmother to go out into the “female playground” when my Mom was five years old. My grandmother, Lola rented out half of her house with her little daughter, my Mom. There were two gentlemen that rented the back half of the house and one of these gentlemen fell for Lola. Fortunately, for my Mom this wonderful gentleman whom I knew as Pappaw married my grandmother. Pappaw loved my Mom as if she were of his own blood. This pair developed a solid home and a relationship that my Mom had to look up to that lasted for over fifty years. My Mom did not let the abandonment of her father jade her feelings toward the male sex. She always retained more male friends than female and Never lacked male attention. Later in life when my Mom had married and had three girls of her own, she would sometimes take my sister Cheryl and her friend out in our red Ford convertible and drag main street where we lived in Sidney, Nebraska. My Mom used to get asked out on more dates than her young companions, but my Mom would give her great big smile and simply say,” no her one and only was at home.” She would flirt but it was all innocent and people loved to be around Mom! Mom became one Resilient human being and there were many times in our growing up years that she was forced to deal with emergencies on her own as my Dad was a Petroleum Engineer and often would be out on a well location. Inevitably, something would always go wrong with one of her three offspring while he would be sitting on a well. She was a capable person and dealt with these urgent issues without the use of cell phones or internet which were unavailable at the time. Mom was a Kick Butt kind of gal. Her motto being “Don’t let them know they got you down!” Just smile and laugh it off. Laugh my Mom did! Sometimes she would find humor in things you would consider an inappropriate time to laugh such as when we would do something dumb that would end up in us getting banged up somehow. One such incidence comes to mind when I was on the treadmill and it was going a little faster than I could keep up with and I landed face down on top of it missing my footing by miles. My ego was injured and a few other rather unmentionables as well. My Mom was busting up with laughter and my sister Gail was laughing as well while I lay there unattended broken and shaken.
Pamela JohnsonPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesSaltwater is the Cure for Everything
I can hear it as clear as day, "saltwater is the cure for everything!" This was one of my mother's favorite sayings. She grew up at family cottages down on the jersey shore and this lesson was taught to her from a young age as well. Whether you fell on the beach and scraped your knee on a seashell or you had a cold, you jumped in the ocean because, well, saltwater! As kids, my cousins and I always found it so silly, but as we got older we realized that saltwater truly does have the power to heal, not just physical wounds, but emotional ones as well.
Amanda LansingPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesSideline Cheerleader!
Last year I started running to run for myself. I will not lie to you, my dear friends; my Garmin said that I did a lot more than I did. If I ran 4 miles, it would show 5. And I was comfortable in that lie- it made me feel like I was getting somewhere without putting in the effort. I had a tiny medical thing come up in the scheme of life, but it felt significant. It felt like the world was crashing down on me. And then the doctor said those words that no chubby middle age women should hear- 'you need to slow down and relax.'
Rose Loren Geer-RobbinsPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesLife Lessons: How Not to Cook
Parents are responsible for shaping us into who we are. Some parents take that responsibility very seriously and work together to raise their child or children when some simply deny all responsibility. This is how I grew up. In a single-parent household with my Mum leading the charge. No father or siblings in my world, just me, my Mum and my Grandparents.
Ben ShelleyPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesThe Quiet Dynamo
I held onto my mama’s little finger as we walked that one more round at Jalandhar’s Central Park, reciting the table of 13 in Punjabi. Terah ekum terah, Terah dooni chabbi, Terah tiyah Untali, Terah chauka bawinja (13*1=13, 13*2=26, 13*3=39, 13*4=52) I knew it by heart. I was five years old. An old man stopped us and asked me to repeat. I did. ‘Who is your teacher’, he asked incredulously. I pointed to my mama, the best teacher in the world.
40 Whole Years
FIFTY!?" The number seemed completely unfair. I was seething and I had to wrap my tongue over my top teeth, to keep myself from biting it off. It seemed like an infinity. 50. "Yes fifty times." Mom said, with narrow eyes that could rival Scarlett O'hara herself. " I will respect others".
Sara BalliettPublished 3 years ago in FamiliesKindness Over Callousness
My mother grew up on the less fortunate side of things. Her father was an army vet turned jukebox and pinball machine mechanic, while her mother stayed home to care for the children. Her family was full of love, but the void of extra money for luxury. She is the oldest of five, with a large age gap between her and her youngest two brothers. As the years went by, it became apparent that her mother’s mental health was on a steady decline.