With Mother’s Day still very fresh in our memories, I came across something on the internet that just made me laugh. Supposedly, these are the ten most common things mothers say. I don’t know if there was a poll done or if there was any sort of scientific process followed or if the writer just recalled his/her mother and her verbal eruptions, but over the years I have heard any number of mothers say these things. Actually, my mother said all these things. A rush came over me as I recalled different moments in time and I thought I would share with you. If any of these are familiar, enjoy the memory.

Money doesn’t grow on trees. One of Mom’s favorite lines. It covered everything. You want a different sugar laden cereal? “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” The new, hot toy? “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” Your feet are growing so fast you need new shoes? “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” I hated the phrase. Just say no, for crying out loud! I know money doesn’t grow on trees! But, I found myself saying it to my own son a generation later. You would think they would do something about making leaves into legal tinder.

Because I said so. Ended every argument. ‘Because I said so’ had to be proceeded with a series of ‘whys.’ “Can I go to my buddy’s house to play?” No. “Why?” You just can’t go. “Well, why not?” I don’t want you to go. “But I don’t understand why not.” You need to stay home. “But, why?” There’s no reason for you to go. “Well, that’s kind of stupid, give me one good reason, Mom, why I cant’s go.” BECAUSE I SAID SO! Very effective because now you knew you had pushed too far. You are done. Shut up. All you had to wonder about then was why Mom didn’t want you to go. You knew one thing for sure. If you said another word, you were going to have to wonder how you were going to sit in school the next day.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Mom didn’t adhere to this herself. She just insisted her kids button it if they couldn’t say positive things. I got to use this one on my Mom, which was sweet. In later years she couldn’t stand Bill Clinton. “Oh, now Mom. What was that you used to say to me? If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Mom would go off on her boss. “Oh, now Mom. What was that you used to say to me? If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Whatever team beat her beloved Cleveland Browns that week was deserving of her full anger. “Oh, now Mom. What was that you used to say to me? If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Of course, the more I would bring that up the angrier she would get at me. One day my sister and I were sitting in her kitchen and I was egging Mom on. Mom started calling me a smart aleck and all that. My sister said, “Mom, now listen to me.” Mom settled. Cathy was the oldest after all. Cathy said, “If you can’t say something nice about Larry, don’t say anything at all.”

Be nice to your sister. Right. Only, for me, it was always “Be nice to your sisters,” since I had two sisters. I was a fabulous brother. They were lucky to have me. Once, in a Little League game, I stayed in the batter’s box too long and got hit by a pitch on my left arm just below the shoulder. Swelled up pretty bad and really bruised. I could see in my mind Mom getting all upset if I showed her, but I couldn’t keep that bruise a secret long. That would have ended my baseball career right there. The next day Mom went to town to the store. She had an old Electrolux vacuum sweeper that had steel wands for the hose. Now they would just have been plastic, but back in the 1950s when she bought it they used steel for their wands. I took one of those wands out to the yard and slipped the wand around a tree so I could pull both ends at the same time. I managed to put a little crease in the wand. Then, I took it back to the sweeper. When Mom came home I was sitting on the back porch, crying. “What’s wrong,” she asked, voice filled with concern. I was not a crier. “Cathy got made at me and hit me with the sweeper wand so hard it bent it and I have this bruise!” Mom rushed into the house and found the weapon and saw the crease and Cathy got a pretty good whacking and I was off the hook. Of course, Cathy denied it all, but there was the bent wand and the awful bruise. Usually, I was nice to my sisters.

Wipe that smirk off your face. With my mom it was usually “Wipe that look off your face or I’ll wipe it off for you!” Which was all motherly bluster. I think my mother slapped me one time and I don’t know that she ever slapped either of my sisters. We got spanked and sometimes switched, but rarely ever slapped. As I recall, I deserved the slap. Still, the saying was effective because you never really knew. She also had a real favorite, “I am going to slap you silly!” Again, never happened, but you just never knew when the old girl would snap.

If I spoke to my mother that way…… This one carried no weight at all. Our grandmother was the sweetest, tiniest thing you could ever imagine. We would just roll our eyes. Then came the evening I, as an adult, was sitting at the table with my uncle, Mom’s brother, drinking coffee and I asked him, “Uncle Burt, how did Granny keep 11 kids in line?” He put his cup down and gave a little shudder. “You know, I don’t really want to talk about that.” So, maybe there was something there.

Look at this room! It looks like a pigsty! All I am going to say is that Mom wasn’t being truthful. No decent pig would have lived in my room. It was horrible. And it wasn’t just a mess. One day my sister Debbie walked in just as I was slipping a magazine under my mattress. She grabbed me and hauled me out to the hallway. “MOOOOOOMMMMMM! LARRY’S GOT DIRTY MAGAZINES UNDER HIS MATTRESS! (If you think I was bad to my sisters, you should have seen how they were to me.) Mom raced up the stairs and tore off my mattress. There they were. “Baseball Digest,” “Outdoor Life,” “Sports Afield” and various comic books and my library books. Mom didn’t know what to say. Debbie just got red in the face. Mom said, “Why are all these things under your mattress?” I was really confused. I didn’t even know what a ‘dirty’ magazine was, so I told Mom the truth. “If I put them somewhere else in my room I’ll lose them.” I don’t think she knew whether to laugh or cry, but Debbie did pay a price for trying to get me in trouble.

Don’t forget to brush your teeth. Not real common at home. Before church or if there was a wedding or if we were going to a funeral, but we were rarely told to brush our teeth. Mom would just say that if our teeth rotted and fell out, don’t come running to her.

Don’t make that face or it will stick that way. The best one. Not only did my mother say that all the time, but then she would tell the story of some kid she grew up with whose face did freeze all scrunched up. One time it would be a boy, the next a girl. All the time a different name. Poor little child having to go through life with a messed up face. One time my sister Debbie said, “Boy, Mom, you sure came from an ugly little town!” In truth, neither of my sisters were to bright.

Because I’m your mother, that’s why. That one ranks right up there with, “Because I said so.” It didn’t make much sense. But, after she said, “Because I’m your mother, that’s why” she would go on by telling us what she had to go through to be our mother. She might tell of her hard labor or her having to be a car hop at Earl’s to provide extra money or the worry we caused her. The goal was to make us feel guilty. It did make my sisters not want to get pregnant, so maybe that did some good. But mostly we just dismissed this last one.

However, I have to say, she maybe did something right. Before my mother’s kids came along, no one in her family (or my father’s, for that matter) had ever gone to college or had ever had a job other than the farm or factory. Mom’s kids have five college and graduate degrees between them. Mom’s kids never got in any serious trouble. (Cathy broke into an ice cream truck once and stole the ice cream, but to me that just made her a hero) Mom’s daughters didn’t get pregnant until they were married and her only son never got a girl ‘in trouble.’ Mom’s kids are not perfect, not by a long shot, but overall, we did OK.

Thanks, Mom.