| Mom still sets the rules for well-behaved children |
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By: MIKE PIRTLE, Post Publisher
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Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 7:01 am
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When I was growing up, you dressed for church.
You sat up straight and at least acted like you were paying attention during preaching, even if the preacher was in the third day of his sermon and talking about lust that made absolutely no sense to a 9-year-old.
You polished your shoes every Saturday night.
You always addressed an adult with ‘sir’ or “ma’am,” but you didn’t speak at all unless addressed.
You ate three bites of your vegetables, even beets and that fancy stuff, asparagus.
You never went onto a stranger’s property.
Our mother had lots of rules. With five kids, and at one time three boys four and under, that was probably necessary just to survive.
But, it was way more than that.
Mom taught us how to behave properly in public, as young gentlemen and as Christians.
I guess the rules, the rights and wrongs, the dos and don’ts became pretty prolific as we grew up, but I never remember having any trouble remembering any of them, although I may have tried to argue otherwise after getting caught in a transgression.
But, as soon as you could sit at the kitchen table for supper without a booster seat or whatever, you were expected to chew your food with your mouth shut, not slurp and not reach over anyone or anything.
The process was progressive.
I remember us getting many compliments as such well-behaved children. That pleased us because it pleased our mom and we knew it was the right way to be, but it sure would have been nice to undo that bowtie on a hot summer morning in church.
The incredible job my mom did in raising her children, however they turned out later as adults which she could only partially influence, came rushing back to me last week when an e-mail pushing a book, shared what the author claims are parenting myths.
Here is part of his list of 10 parenting myths that are still widely believed and were in effect in my childhood household (I left out the ones that weren’t in effect)
• Vitamin C supplements help ward off colds. (I don’t think we had supplements when I was young, but we did drink orange juice in the winter.)
• Reading in the dark can cause later vision or eye problems. (I loved to read and heard this one a lot.)
• Treat a burn with an application of ice or butter. (Well, I know it felt better to me.)
• It is not safe for children to go swimming immediately after eating. (Man, we wasted a lot of 30 minutes after a peanut butter sandwich.)
• The best way to stop a bloody nose is to tilt the head back. (Actually, the best way to stop a bloody nose is to duck. While we had plenty of bloody noses, I don’t remember how we treated them, but we didn’t tilt our heads back.)
• If a child sits too close to the television, it can damage his vision. (Only heard this one eight zillion times.)
• Eating a lot of chocolate can cause acne in teens. (Sure miss all those forgone Hershey bars.)
After careful consideration, I’m sticking with my mom’s version on the above.
I know I read in the dark too much and sat with my nose against the TV screen and had to wear glasses by age 12. Ice makes a burn feel better for just a little while. Chocolate may not cause acne, but teens in my time were seldom obese as is such a huge problem now.
I’m sure some things Mom taught us would not hold up in today’s prevailing wisdom. But, they would mainly be things having to do with treating a nose bleed and such. After all, we drank water out of a hosepipe in the summer all the time in those days.
On the things that count: Treating people politely and fairly, being accountable, living a moral life, Mom had the right lessons.
Whether I learned and held those lessons is on me.
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