My mother was strict and NEVER went back on a punishment...EVER. She stuck to her guns, something I'm not so great at doing. After five minutes of my daughter whining, I'm like "GO! GO! Go to the park and get abducted by a creeper...get abducted by ALIENS, just GO!" Once when I was about eight, I had gotten this awesome pencil. It had individual leads encased in little plastic nibs. When the lead ran out, you popped the old lead into the bottom of the pencil and a new, fresh lead popped up. We were in the car, and I was having a ball poking my five-year-old brother with the fresh, pointy lead. My mother told me to stop; I didn't. She reached around and grabbed the pencil in a ninja-like fashion and threw it out the window! I saw my pencil, in slow motion, fly out into the wilderness on the side of the road. My brother laughed. I cried. But I learned a lesson. Do that shit where your mom can't see you.
Speaking of riding in the car, my mom had orangutan arms when it came to the "back seat reach-slap." If you have kids, or WERE a kid, you know what I'm talking about. I swear when she reached back, her arm lengthened by six inches. There was really no aiming involved, just flailing and slapping. Didn't matter if you weren't the target, you got whacked anyway. All you could do was curl up into the corner of the seat, cover your head like you were in a school tornado drill and hope for the best.
I remember once one of my black friends was telling me that she thought white mothers were too soft on their kids. I told her that if that was the case, then I was definitely part black. I once heard the Hispanic comedian Paul Rodriquez say that Hispanic moms, when mad, would start rambling in Spanish and would give you one whack for every word they spoke. My mom doesn't speak Spanish, but she's very familiar with the "whack-a-word" spanking.
Of course my mom wasn't all about spanking. She would stick up for us kids with the ferocity of a hungry grizzly bear. NOBODY messed with her kids. Once, at a county fair, we were standing in line for a ride on the merry-go-round. This HUGE guy cut line, not in front of us, but in front of the guy who was before us. My mother walked right up to that beastly man, grabbed his arm and said, "HEY! Get in the back of the line, buddy! We were here first!" The guy moved. The guy in front of us turned around and said, "I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm glad you did!" I thought they were going to have to call the guy who went around with the pooper-scooper because I think pants were shit that day. My sister says that a line she remembers well from her childhood is "And if ANYONE bothers you, you tell ME and I'll be up at that school so fast..."
My mom has a lot of cool talents. She can juggle and is very proud of her skill. She taught herself, and would practice with oranges. She once thought she might try to juggle plates, but when a piece of Corelle dinnerware flew out of her hands and hit the wall, she gave up. Good call, mom.
She is also the champion of backwards running. Yeah, you heard me. If backwards running were an Olympic sport, she'd hold the world record. I think she actually runs faster backwards than forwards; in fact, I'm sure of it. One talent she failed miserably at was ball-standing. Again, you heard that correctly. There was a basketball on the floor in our kitchen once and out of the blue she said, "Hey guys, watch this!" She proceeded to try to stand on the ball. She first held her balance using the kitchen table, but when she let go and tried to go it alone, the ball slipped out from under her, she slipped under the table, and bashed her head off of the table leg. We just stood there, mouths agape, wondering what to do. She started laugh-crying and said "Don't ever try that..." Note taken, Mom. Note taken.
My mom was and is very competitive. She never "let us win." Ever. She didn't care if we were crying and pouting, fair was fair. I'm glad she was like this, because it taught us that 1.) life's not fair, and 2.) to trust no one. Just kidding! It taught us to do our best and to never go down without a fight because if your own mother will chew you up and spit you out, imagine what the world will do.
She won't admit to it, but my mom is also pretty creative and inventive. We always had the best school projects (and the neatest, too). She would spend hours with us working on projects, making sure every detail was perfect. Once when we came back from a vacation in Florida, she helped me make a display of all of the shells and sea creatures we had collected. I remember having to put a few crabs into Ziploc bags because they hadn't quite "cured."
Another time, when I was in kindergarten, she had taken my brother and I on a walk and we came across a dead snake on the side of the road. "You could take this to school for show-and-tell," she said. So she put the snake on a long stick and I carried it home. She put it in a Ziploc bag and I toted it off to school the next day. My classmates thought it was way cool. My teacher called the janitor to get rid of it once the class had seen it. Unbeknownst to my teacher, our school janitor, Mr. Best, was deathly afraid of snakes. He took one look at the snake all curled up in the bag and took off out of the room, yelling "You'll have to get someone else to get rid of that!" He found a cafeteria lady willing to do the job and all of the students were SURE that we would be having snake nuggets for lunch that day.
My mother was an authority figure, but she had some pretty cool tricks up her sleeve. My sister reminded me of how she taught us to make fake wounds with rubber cement, and I remember her showing us how to fold a Land O'Lakes butter box to look like the kneeling woman's knees were her boobs! I do have to give Dad credit for teaching us about the flammability of methane gas...I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.
My mom was always ready with a lesson about anything and everything. She was a voracious reader and knew a little about a lot. Once, after a three-wheeler ride with my dad, my brother and I came home and asked, "If you're on a motorcycle, but you're actually like, sideways on a hill, what keeps you from falling off the hill??" We were instructed not to tell Mom about that little trick and we tried to keep our word, but c'mon, we were curious! Mom filled a bucket half-way with water, took us outside and told us to hold the bucket while we spun in a circle. As we spun our way to puking, she said, "See? That's called centrifugal force!"
I find myself saying things to my daughter that are straight out of my mother's mouth. I've used the "If anyone bothers you" line more than a few times and I'm all about teaching life-lessons. I'm not as strict as my mom was, but I try to teach my daughter the same lessons that my mom taught me. My mom always taught us to be kind to others, to steer clear of drama, to do your best work always, to be honest, and to never judge a person before you get to know them. We grew up in a house where racism, prejudice, and homophobia didn't exist and for that I am thankful. My mother always encouraged us to follow our dreams and that you have to work hard for what you want. I am the person I am today because of my mother, and for me that is the greatest Mother's Day gift I could ever receive.
As for ball-standing, I admit I've tried it. And as usual, my mother was right.
My mom, me, and our dog Biscuit, circa 1981.
©Kari Potochnik
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