OT: Lessons learned from our mothers

Was just posting a Mother's Day note for my daughters on a social networking site we share, and in memory of my own mother, I listed some life lessons I learned from observing her life. Would love to read what others here learned about living from their mothers' lives. Here's my list. Oh, I've retired from abiding by #21. Critters are someone else's job.

1) Good grades in school may not be necessary to life, just to living in this house.
2) Quiet strength is no less strong for its meekness.
3) The key to contentment is recognizing the difference between boring and peaceful.
4) Life brings enough drama without creating more.
5) Chocolate pie can't be too rich.
6) Take no satisfaction in being right about a loved one's wrongs.
7) Character is shown in crisis.
Even when life deals you a bad hand, play it like a winner.
9) For your own benefit, give others the benefit of the doubt - you'll have less to stew over.
10) Hard work really never did hurt anyone.
11) Don't be surprised by how much you could live without - get some practice.
12) A woman's work is whatever needs to be done.
13) Better enjoy the little things in life. It may be a long dry spell between big events.
14) If you can, buy what you really want. If you can't, don't.
15) If you can't be proud of what you have, at least take pride in it.
16) If you want to eat, you'd better learn to like what grows in a garden.
17) If you can't buy something new, make it yourself or make the old one look like new.
18) A person really can hang drywall alone.
19) Necessity really is the mother of invention.
20) Sundays are not for cooking large meals. Even the cook gets a day of rest.
21) First Finder Rule - if you found the mouse, bug, or spider, deal with it.
22) Mothers sacrifice - it just what we do.

My mom is 82 while I am 53... and I am still learning from her!

Happy Mothers day to all mothers out there... you are so valued and loved!

Happy mother's day to all the moms on the forum! My own mother, rest her soul, was a wonderful person in many respects, but she was not always a ray of sunshine. She was one of those people who always found the flaw in any situation. When my daughter was young she once said that if everything else in the world was perfect, her grandmother's underwear wouldn't feel right. So, like Mars, I learned some of what NOT to do. Biggest lesson: Life is short and doesn't follow your plan, so find the good and enjoy it!

The most important lesson I learned from my mother was about relationships, and watching how she handled my dad: Chose your battles....let the rest slide.

Some of the things I learned from mom:

Dead bodies make great fertilizer for roses.

Never give up, you can slip away around the corner to come back with another booby trap/ bomb another day.

Just because it feels good doesn't mean it is good for you.

Always make friends with the support staff, the janitor maybe more important to your job then your boss.

Never kiss ass, just kick it real hard.

My mom has been a real role model for me. She's definitely a one-in-a-million person. Some lessons learned:

- patience really is a virtue
- be kind to people, help people, but take care of yourself too
- education is very important!
- you're never too old to go back to school, learn new things, or change direction
- never be afraid of hard work
- keep your finances in order and keep some spare for a "rainy day" (or in the recent economic mess, for a "rainy year or two" !)
- in relationships: someone usually has to compromise. figure out what your and your family's priorities are. Similar to KatieW's mom!
- enjoy every moment you have, you never know when it'll all be taken away
- be humble, respect everyone regardless of their rank in life
- silver lining on every cloud sort of attitude, pollyanna, life hands you lemons make lemonade....
- give back to your community, to the world....

My mother's mother and her sister were/are very similar. Pretty much a family of angels. They came from a _very_ poor background and had a _very_ difficult childhood. My father's mother, on the other hand, was a bit like brazospearls describes - always something negative about every situation. It's very difficult to ever please anyone like that, and they end up isolating themselves. So yes, i've also learned what NOT to do too...

Hi Kathy

I have thought long and hard about "lessons learned from our mothers", and I have had to struggle to come up with a reply. But it is probably good for me to respond. I hope it is different to most of the replies you get.

I guess I mainly learned that I did not want to be like her, so what I got from her was a growing conviction of -

what not to do,

and what not to think

and what not to say

and most of all.......................

what not to be.

Sad,

but thats the way it is.

And parental influences are not so easy to get rid of, so sometimes I find myself being like her

But it's always nice to read that others had loving, supportive and interested mothers

Mars

PS I apologise to brazospearl for deleting my original post, which she mentioned, and is now posted above. I just wanted to think through what I was saying, and be sure I was willing to put those sentiments out there.

The most important thing I learned from my mother was "never give up". When her cancer was diagnosed she was given a year to live. She lasted almost five. Of course we always said she was just too darned ornery to die. On the flipside my old man was given a year and lasted a month.

I'm still trying to figure out how I lost out on number "12".

I do realize that I am very fortunate that my mother's virtues far outweighed her shortcomings (she was human). Oh, I did take away some "not-to-do" lessons too. We had some rough times for a few years, and I'm sure I challenged all her best intentions she had when she became a mother. Some things I early on determined to do better as a mother were:
1) My children will never hear it from me that what they don't have might lessen them in their peers' eyes.
2) While I may justly (or unjustly) disapprove of my offspring's actions, I will never disown them or consider them dead to me, even if I know I won't stick with it long.
2) I won't leave this life with my children never remembering hearing their mother initiate the words "I love you", even if it is well understood.
3) Maintaining our relationship will ALWAYS be more important to me than what anyone else thinks of anything you have done. If I should ever feel ashamed before my friends because of something you do, you'll never hear it from me.
4) In the event my children stray way off the beaten path, my purpose is to maintain the bridges by which they can return if they choose.
5) I will make sure my children know there is no shame in that which they didn't cause. And for that which we do cause, there is life after shame.
My girls made parenting (relatively) easy, and I'm grateful they didn't fulfill my mom's prediction of giving me back what I'd given her. I'm sure if they were doing their lists I'd cringe at the truths, as even though I've avoided much of my mom's issues, I created a slew of my own. We all learn from our childhood in different ways. It sobers me to hear stories of those whose negatives far outweighed any positives, and I greatly respect those who survived or even thrived "in spite of", even when it took a while to sort things out.