Meet my mum her name is Lorraine and as crazy as she drives me she also makes me scratch my head in wonder. I woke a few nights ago realising that we don’t have a lot of time left with her I know that sounds horrible and morbid but that’s the truth and it made me reflective ah yes..Reflective cue the music now…
Our relationship to say the least has been rocky we haven’t always got along and if truth be known her and I have only been able to exchange a jokes without me hurting her in the last few months. We have matured together I like to say. My husband however can do all sorts, say all sorts and she loves him more for it and yet it often left me bewildered, upset and worried we would be stuck like that forever something I didn’t want.
But we are moving on and that in itself makes me so happy I could cry.. So old lady and yes that’s what I affectionately call her…this is a wee post for you about what you taught me because the truth is I know you think its not too much..
1. My mother taught me to laugh at myself more. She can laugh at herself. Whether it be a supid statement she makes or the fact she fell over the kerb or off the same back step thats been at her home for 40 years she will laugh. I have only just learnt that embarrassing through a gaf and finally embracing my inability to not always guarantee one foot in front of the other is not the end of the world it’s what makes us human.
2. My mother taught me women can do anything. My mother was a FIFO mum for awhile and she taught me that women can do anything. That being a woman is not an excuse for being weak..
3. She taught me the meaning to the phrase it’s a new day and it’s a clean slate and it’s true. For six months we had a trot of crap…being robbed five times consquetivly…illness her and me…my stepbrother and his drugs…yet she laughed her way through and everyday was a new day and a new week and clean slate.
4. She taught me that I don’t like and never will like Slim Dusty’s music…or Charlie pride and that bloke in the black hat and rusty ute…you will not find them on my playlist if you do its time to buy me a white strange fitting jacket and time in a resort with a wing called ward..
5. She demonstrated to me never to keep something to myself…I have seen what it’s done to her. There is no point and it fixes nothing. She retreats. She thinks and thinks some more until the problem is something it never ever was. Sorry mum but it’s your worst habit…but I love you still.
6. She showed me how to make a good dinner from nothing. A family in the 80’s with interest rates of 23% I ate my fair share of buffalo steak and rice not to mention Sheppard’s pie made with copious amounts of potato.
7. She taught me how to do a celebration. I was an only child but she did the Easter bunny, tooth fairy and Santa like nobody’s business…which is why all my husbands brothers and cousins flock to our house for these celebrations now..Because I have taught my husband who wasn’t as fortunate as I like she taught me…and we do it better than anyone…it’s what childhoods are made of…
8. She showed me how important it is to treat everybody the same. My mother it seemed knew every single homeless long grasser in town back in the day and she gave them the same hello, the same how are you she would to the chief minister of the time. I will never forget her opening a fire hydrant case, handing a man a sandwich and chatting to him about his day. She taught me everyone has a story and quiet often it’s worse than your own and it gives you no right to treat them any less.
9. To outsource when required until faking it until you make it has got you through. She outsourced me to two other amazing ladies and they taught me what she felt as a tom boy raised in a shearing shed with an alcoholic father a minimal education and dyslexia couldn’t…without her fore thought and them I would be nothing.
10. Don’t take no for an answer ever. My father would say no all the time…it was loud it was daunting and useless because he never got his wayshe always found another alternative…I just learnt a more diplomatic way around things.
So what was one thing your mum taught you?
Xx Deb
She sounds awesome sweet..and I admire all of that..thanks for taking the time to share it..cool without being mutton chop cool..love it XD
Great post 🙂
My mum taught me that your job doesn’t define you. YOU define IT. She was a SAHM all my life and she taught me it’s not lazy, boring, unstimulating – it’s what you make of it. You work your arse off and you make your house a home. It doesn’t mean you’re from the 1950s and it doesn’t mean you don’t use your brain. It’s what you make of it. Always creative, always stretching her mind, always teaching my brother and I something. Never falling behind. Gender roles? Forget them! She’s as brilliant with a lawn mower, paint brushes and handy (wo)man tasks as she is with a sewing machine (she once rescued my wedding dress). My mum is active, social and does whatever she wants to – she’s just turned 60 and the way she lives, I just cannot accept that she is that old. Because she isn’t. She’s cool without being mutton dressed as lamb. I don’t know how she does it.
I might get frustrated when she’s never able to babysit because she’s too busy living her life, but I don’t think I’d want her any other way. It will be sad the day she can’t. I want her to make the most of these years.
My mum taught me that you can be a strict, protective parent, but that you can build trust and still let your kids have their independence when the time is right. She taught me how to be strong inside and to accept truths about myself that aren’t always easy to swallow. She’s honest. I love that. If I robbed a bank or killed someone, she’d be telling the police where to find me (and give me hell for it too) – none of this denial sh*t. I admire that.
x