Mean Moms!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians! I was out of town Mother’s Day week, but I did find a special tribute story for mothers called “Mean Moms” and it totally made me think of my mom…

So it goes like this… At the age of 33, my step mom, married my dad who had five kids. Any woman marrying some guy with five kids is simply amazing to me (or crazy). My dad says it was sympathy. My mom to this day doesn’t recall what she was thinking! Our family of eight kids was a handful and Mom quickly turned into a drill sergeant. We called her ‘mean’ and yet she was not afraid to remind us of how her ‘meanness’ eventually worked to our benefit…

She insisted on knowing where we were at all times. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing with them. At times she cared enough to be silent so we would discover on our own that some friends were creeps.

I can think of three ‘mean mom’ examples with my siblings…

· She stood over one brother for two hours on a few occasions while he cleaned his room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

· She let another brother deal with bad consequences after some stupid actions that almost broke her heart.

· And she said NO to a sister when she insisted on continually hanging out with some loser guy.

In each case Mom was accused of being ‘mean’ and yet in most cases her ‘meanness’ paid off, except for my sister who ended up marrying the guy anyway!

My mom (and my dad) broke Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, clean, vacuum, mow our 2 acre lawn, cut weeds, do chores and all sorts of cruel jobs. We swore that she was so mean she would lie awake at night thinking of more stuff for us to do.

Mom always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As teenagers, she had eyes in the back of her head and could read our minds. We thought that was mean and unfair.

Because of my mom’s meanness we missed out on a few things… like shoplifting, vandalizing property or the experience of be arrested. For that we all are grateful.

And today my mom is pretty much the same only now hear meanness is with the next generations, her grand kids. And interestingly enough my siblings and I have all been accused of being ‘mean’ by our kids, just as we did with Mom.

To my mom I say ‘keep it up!’ You are the greatest ‘mean mom!’ And maybe you are thinking your mom was mean like mine? I think the world could actually use a few more mean moms. We salute our moms with a belated “Happy Mother’s Day!” and that is our Bottom of the News on this May 20th, 2011! ###