Once upon a time, we were just sisters and wives and daughters when we got together, sharing a mom and having first names. Now, we’re all Mom, Mommy, Grandma, Mamaw, Aunt, Great-aunt, mother-in-law . . . . I can remember days when I couldn’t remember the last time someone called me by my actual name.

I also remember, clear as a bell, the first time my child said my new name. Mama. That moment is etched on my heart, in beautiful calligraphy, and decorated with fresh flowers. I still love to hear my children say “Mom.” These women whose children refer to them by their first names, instead of some variation of mother? I pity both woman and child. Somethin’ WRONG wit dat. Somebody gots her priorities all messed up.

Naturally, this doesn’t keep me from snickering at women who choose a synonym for “grandmother” that sounds like poo or a body part or something from an old 70′s porn flick.

Item:  I am not a grandmother.

Contrary to popular belief, mothers are not omniscient; we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, and we can’t read your mind. The only exception to that would be MY mother.

And speaking of my mother. . . Mom, I have tried to emulate you in many ways, all of my life. You read to us. You sat down on the floor and played with us. You used the power of Parenthood and created Special Days, all throughout the year. Christmas is a holiday, sure, but it was YOU who created OUR Christmas.  I still fix Easter baskets for my kids exactly the way you fixed them for us.  I have tried to “do” holidays just as you did, all my married life.

I’m looking forward to Sunday, dear sisters and nieces and daughters and all of the other wonderful descriptions that come with all of you. I might be the weirdo of the bunch – oh, it’s not like I don’t KNOW that!!!! -but I might also be the most sentimental of the bunch.

1.The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

2. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

3. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

4. A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

5. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

6. He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

7. An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

8. My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

9. Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

10. Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

11. The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin

12. A mom forgives us all our faults, not to mention one or two we don’t even have. ~Robert Brault

13. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

14. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

15. Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. ~Moorish Proverb

16. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. ~Abraham Lincoln

17. No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

18. God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

19. Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

20. I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother. ~ Abraham Lincoln

21. The mother loves her child most divinely not when she surrounds him with comforts and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

22. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. ~ William Ross Wallace

23. There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness… The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way. ~ Andrew Jackson

24. Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me? ~ Nancy Thayer

25. No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

26. Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’” ~ Lillian Carter

27. And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see — or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. ~ Alice Walker

28. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering. ~ Elaine Heffner

29. If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. ~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

30. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it. ~ Rose Kennedy

31. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

32. She was the archetypal selfless mother: living only for her children, sheltering them from the consequences of their actions — and in the end doing them irreparable harm. ~ Marcia Muller

33. Spend at least one Mother’s Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him. ~ Erma Bombeck

34. No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick. ~ Erma Bombeck

35. Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. ~ Charlotte Gray

36. Giving kids clothes and food is one of thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. ~ Dolores Huerta

37. Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still. ~ Nancy Friday

38. I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. ~ Pearl S. Buck

39. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~ Father Theodore Hesburgh

40. When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. ~ Virginia Woolf

41. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. ~ Agatha Christie

42. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein

43. If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

44. What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

45. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~ Mark Twain

46. Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions. ~ Nancy Stahl

47. There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent. ~ Golda Meir

49. A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. ~ Cardinal Mermilod

50. A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. ~ George Eliot

51. There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off. ~ Angela Carter

52. Isidor Isaac Rabi’s mother used to ask him, upon his return from school each day, “Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?” ~ Steve Chandler

53. Sometimes the poorest woman leaves her children the richest inheritance. ~ Ruth E. Renkel

54. Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~ Marion C. Garretty

55. A mother is never cocky or proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium. ~ Mary Kay Blakeley

56. It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~ Phyllis Diller

57. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it. ~ Haim Ginott

58. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. ~ Abigail Van Buren

59. Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone

60. If you want your child to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want your child to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales. ~ Albert Einstein

61.  If you want a baby, have a new one. Don’t baby the old one. ~ Jessamyn West

62. My mother was the making of me. ~Thomas Alva Edison

63. You’re not famous until my mother has heard of you. ~ Jay Leno

64. I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
~ Ellen DeGeneres

65. I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity. ~ Michelle Obama

66. I’d like to be the ideal mother, but I’m too busy raising my kids. ~ Unknown

67. Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children. ~ Marilyn Penland.

68. It’s such a grand thing to be a mother of a mother – that’s why the world calls her “grandmother.” ~ Author Unknown

69. Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. ~ Pam Brown

70. If your mom’s asleep, don’t wake her up. ~ Unknown

71. My mother is a poem, I’ll never be able to write. Though everything I write, is a poem to my mother. ~ Sharon Doubiago

72. Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others’ children. ~ Sam Levenson

73. Woman knows what man has long forgotten, that the ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family. ~ Clare Boothe Luce

74. Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. ~ Charlotte Grey

75. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering. ~ Elaine Heffner

==

P.S. What’s that she’s saying? She needs to FIND HERSELF? “Find herself” my Aunt Fanny. I call bullshit on that one. Act your age, even if it’s just an “act.” You had a child. Grow a pair (above or below; both kinds can be great parents), and be a parent to your child. He doesn’t need a friend your age. He’ll have pals his own age. YOU can “find yourself” after your job is done.

P.P.S. Does anybody else love it when, out in public, a child says “Mama?” and forty women instinctively turn their heads?

P.P.P.S. Grammar Queen that I am – terrifyingly so, in fact, so watch your step – I absolutely love this cartoon:

When our mothers are young, we don’t consider them ‘friends.’ We don’t consider them young, either, because when we’re very young, all adults are old. Heck, our 12-year-old cousins seem like adults.  Our 22-year-old teacher and Grandma: one and the same, age-wise. No, to a child, most adults are old; they’re not sweet young things. They never were; it’s not possible.

Our mother was always a mother.  She had no life before us.  She’s just Mommy, when we’re young, and when she’s young. We don’t even know she were young till we look at old pictures. And then we’re blown away because, “Oh my gosh, look how YOUNG she was there!”

But as we get older, our mothers seem to stay the same, and somehow the years between us don’t matter as much as they used to.

They stay the same, that is, until we take a good long look at them and it hits us that they look old. Not just mom-old, but OLD. Wrinkly. And you know there’s white underneath the Miss Clairol. And they aren’t as sure-footed as they used to be.

This is shocking, but it’s okay, as long as the MOM is still there inside the stranger-every-day body. You know, MOM. The lady who can make magic with a word or a touch? Her? That’s the one.

Good thing WE’LL never get old like that, huh.

I’ve read that when we are in our twenties, the fifty-year-old mother is somehow at her peak of Mom-ness and Friend-ness. Our fifty-year-old mother is an expert in so many things.

What we don’t realize is that our fifty-year-old mother is still missing HER fifty-year-old mother.

And what very few of you know yet, is that your fifty-year-old mother is still as insecure and wondering as she was when she was in her twenties. Your fifty-year-old mother is still beating herself to death over mistakes she made when you were three.

How do I know this? I’d rather not say.

The seventy-year-old mother is still cool. Still Mom. It’s just that the fragility is starting to show, and the mortality thing comes to mind more than we’d like.

The fifty-year-old Mom is the epitome of Momitude. She KNOWS things. We should listen more to our fifty-year-old Mom.

Unless she’s a meddling idiot with outdated stupid ideas and a lot of unwanted advice, of course. You don’t have to listen then.

Chances are, however, that if your fifty-year-old Mom is mean and judgmental and delights in hurting people’s feelings, she was exactly the same when she was in her twenties. Bodies change a lot**. Personalities seldom do.

The following has been making the internet rounds for a long time now, and most of you have no doubt seen it before. However, I’m posting it anyway, because for some reason, it means more to me with each passing year.

============

The Images of Mother

4 YEARS OF AGE ~ My Mommy can do anything!

8 YEARS OF AGE ~ My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!

12 YEARS OF AGE ~ My Mother doesn’t really know quite everything.

14 YEARS OF AGE ~ Naturally, Mother doesn’t know that, either.

16 YEARS OF AGE ~ Mother? She’s hopelessly old-fashioned.

18 YEARS OF AGE ~ That old woman? She’s way out of date!

25 YEARS OF AGE ~ Well, she might know a little bit about it.

35 YEARS OF AGE ~ Before we decide, let’s get Mom’s opinion.

45 YEARS OF AGE ~ Wonder what Mom would have thought about it?

65 YEARS OF AGE ~ Wish I could talk it over with Mom.

======

Let’s talk things over with Mom while we have the chance.

If your own mommy doesn’t appreciate you, come right on over here. I’m not saying exactly how old this Mommy is, but she’s in her peak and prime of Momitude.  I do, however, screw it up sometimes, even now.  I do my best.  That’s all we can do, in any and every phase.

I have a lot of advice, but I’ll wait till you ask me for it***.

*If I knew the author and the name of the article, I’d have mentioned it up above, silly.
**Unless you’re Jamie Lee Curtis.
***Most of the time.

However.  My sympathy ends when there are genuine obligations.

But students, in spite of my total sympathy your desire to sleep in,  and my firm belief that you should be allowed to sleep for 15 completely uninterrupted hours if that’s what your bodies are screaming for, I’m going to have to say, in all honesty, that deciding to sleep in on the day of your final exam was a really bad idea. I also think it might have been worth the excruciating pain your hangnail/hangover/tummy ache/sore throat/deep throat* (who do you think you’re trying to fool?) would have given you, to come to class and take your test. The room is large enough that you could have sat in the back and kept your germs/moans/pain/whining to yourself, and when you were finished you could have taken a nap, completely undisturbed. Yes, I did receive your email explaining how you had to work late last night and were really, really tired, and when the alarm went off you just couldn’t get up, you just COULDN’T, so for the sake of your health you turned over and went back to sleep, and you thanked me in advance for understanding because you know I remember how it felt to be young and so tired it just wasn’t humanly possible to get up for just a test. I didn’t answer it because it’s hard to type when I’m laughing that hard.

Who do you think you’re talking to, kid?

I remember being so tired it wasn’t humanly possible to turn OVER, let alone get up. But I got up anyway, because I had responsibilities. I sleep-walked across campus many times, to take a test. I took tests with migraines so severe there were sparks shooting out of my head and I could barely read the questions. I took tests that I’d pulled two or three all-nighters in a row to prepare for, and I really believed I was prepared! I have fallen asleep with my head resting on my completed test.  I took an important astronomy test in my pajamas, and it was well before public pajama-wearing was “in.”  I never once cut class on a test day, even though there were plenty of times when I wanted to.  Every time, for example.  But I showed up.  I am a walking definition of “Night Owl,” but when I have an obligation, I get up.  And you need to, too.

I think, dear student, that a great way of telling whether a person is an adult or still a child is watching you to see if you are, on a regular basis, dragging the ol’ carcass out of bed to do something because it’s there to be done, you’ve committed to doing it, people are waiting for you to get up and get there to do it, you signed up to do it, you promised people you’d be there to do it, you paid money to do it or you’re being paid money to do it, and by golly you’re just SUPPOSED to be there to do it. No excuses.

I’m very glad that you now feel rested and alert and are rip-roaring eager to take that test.  Unfortunately, the semester is now over and your options are gone.

See you next semester.  Don’t sell your book.

Mamacita says:  I have seen many versions of this story, but this translation from Paul Coelho’s blog is the best so far.

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite a few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and when evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. “I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

Free Clip Art Provided by Artclips.com. Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.

I predict that several students will come to class the NEXT week, and be all astounded and sputtery that the semester is over and the lab is empty and they can’t take the final. But then, most of this kind of student didn’t even know when the final WAS, or what it was about. Tuition was paid, by somebody, but the student seldom showed up and is still enrolled, which means he/she will get an F on the transcript.  It happens every semester, and it’s scary. For the nation, I mean. SCARY. (Did I mention that each student has four opportunities to take the final exam?)

Sometimes, even at this level, a parent will call me at home to tell me why Junior was absent and to tell me that he’ll be at the college on such and such a day to take the final which I will please hand-deliver to him at his convenience and monitor (without pay) the three hours he’ll need to take it. To which I reply that I am not permitted by law to even acknowledge that I’ve ever heard of Junior and there is no way I would ever tell someone over the phone who is and who isn’t in my classes. Then the parent will get all huffy and imperious and say something about paying Junior’s tuition, blah blah blah, and I’ll start to snicker silently on my end, because after all those  years of having administration force me to kowtow and give in to this kind of parent, I am finally allowed to be sensible and professional about it, and simply hang up on anyone who raises his/her voice to me. If the parent tries to go over my head, it won’t work. At least, it hasn’t yet. My department head is awesome.  (Thank you, Carol.  You rock.)  Helicopter parents are a pathetic joke at any level, but if this attitude extends into a kid’s college years, heaven help the universe!

I am giving exams at three different campuses next week,  and I’d bet money, if I had any, that I can tell you exactly which students will be there, pencils sharpened, alert, and ready to take that test, and who won’t be.  And who will be there, but will have to borrow something to write with because he/she “forgot.”  Again.

Have work ethics changed much? Darn right they have. And not for the better, either. Sigh.  I’ve had younger students, used to years of community classroom supplies, actually expect to find colored bins of pencils, free for the taking, in a college classroom.  (Community classroom supplies are the devil.)

Dear Helicopter Parents of College Students: Your kid is raised. Stop raising him. If he’s still an immature weenie, let life hand him/her some consequences. It’s about time somebody did.
Love, Professor MeaniePants

P.S. Your kid is nineteen years old and still can’t remember to bring a pencil to school. And no, he can’t borrow mine. Suck it up. If he wants a grade on a test, he can go down to the bookstore and invest in a two-dollar collegiate-licensed pencil. Yes, they are too expensive and yes, it’s ridiculous. At Target he can get a whole package for a dollar, but then he’d have to remember to bring one to class. You are not allowing your kid to grow up, and he doesn’t have what it takes to do so himself. This is your fault. Back off. Let him struggle and fail, and then perhaps he will struggle and succeed. No, this is NOT being cruel. Cruelty is keeping your kid a kid too long, and doing all the work for him. Step back and don’t give in when he comes crying to you about how hard life is.

Remember Helen Keller, who had to be removed from her doting parents’ home in order to be educated properly, because her parents were so sorry for her that they gave in to her every whim and turned her into a smelly obnoxious beast who demanded her own way and got it in every situation. Poor little Helen, let her have it; she’s been denied so much! We can’t expect poor little Helen to do anything; she can’t SEE or HEAR.  Just let her be.  Cater to her every whim.  Put up with tantrums, etc., because she’s disabled.  Poor, poor little Helen.  We can’t expect her to be able to do things other children do.  We musn’t require it.  Annie removed her from her parents’ home and forced her to live up to her potential.  It wasn’t pretty.  But it worked.

Annie Sullivan wasn’t sure exactly what would work for Helen, but she knew enough to know that catering to the child’s every whim was definitely the wrong approach.  She was willing to try new and different things to try to reach Helen through the silence and darkness, and she knew that sometimes, trial and error ARE the best approach.  Helen’s parents knew they were not up to dealing properly with their daughter because nothing they tried, worked; they were too close to the situation and couldn’t bear to see their child unhappy.  Mr. and Mrs. Keller gave Annie free reign with Helen, and Annie’s methods worked.  Say and think what you will about Annie’s methods; they WORKED.   Why can’t modern parents and administrators see it? Nowadays, Annie would be in the Rubber Room and Helen would be a smelly obnoxious adult with no future, no real life, no way of earning her own living, barely “put up with” wherever she was taken, illiterate, unmannerly, with no self control, and with her intellect imprisoned and unused,  instead of the successful college graduate, public speaker, writer, and advocate of education and human rights that she was able to become thanks to Annie’s unorthodox but successful methods.  (Helen was also on vaudeville, and in a couple of movies.  She’s one of my heroes.)

Thank you, my good students, for being what you’ve been all semester.  I’m so proud of you.  Oh, and don’t sweat the final; it’s nothing but a piece of paper.  Do your best with it, but don’t let it boss you around.  Each of you is more important than a few pieces of paper.  (This batch of students will bring all the proper materials on finals day, do their best, and their best will be great!)  I’m not worried about my students this semester; they’ve done well (the ones who come to class, that is) all semester, and they’re going to do well next week, too.  They’re awesome, and I’m not wasting that word.  Awesome, like a rainbow over the Grand Canyon.  I’ll miss them.

The world is a mess, but each of us can, at least, create order in our own homes and lives, and creativity out of chaos, if we work at it. It takes a lot of hard work, I hope y’all realize.

Life is good. Dig it.

And when life isn’t good, dig it anyway. If you keep digging, you’ll strike gold eventually.

Oh, and bring a pencil to class on test day. Them nasty professors will show you no mercy; they can’t, because they have no hearts. Nope.

They have no heart, and they never fart. That’s why they’re so mean all the time.

And now you know.

Word, students: when you think you’re down to nothing, make a vuvuzela with a balloon and a hex nut.  You don’t really need a lot of stuff to make a joyful noise.  Or to share it with the people in the lab down the hall.

Is it because dandelions are so common, and grow so easily, that we take them for granted and prefer flowers that really aren’t all that much prettier but which are harder to grow, expensive,  and are a bit less common?  If dandelions weren’t sprinkled everywhere, turning plain green lawns into starry universes, common, easy, beloved by children, would they be more popular?

Whenever there are too many of pretty much anything, we tend to take them for granted and consider them less than first class.  Take a look at our overcrowded classrooms, for example.  But I digress.

If we examine each individual child flower, we will see that it is wondrously made, unique, adds to the quality of the universe, and is worthy of attention.

No florist’s creation will ever rival the Dixie cup with a few short-stemmed dandelions plunked down in it.

Nothing store-bought or paid-for will ever rival the dandelion even in its death, turned into a white fuzzy clock that will tell a child the time, according to the number of breaths it takes to blow all the fuzz away.  And, of course, FAIRIES love to ride on the soft, fluffy achenes, granting wishes right and left.  Every child knows that if you can blow ALL the achenes off with one breath, your wish will definitely come true.

How sad, to be a child without dandelions on the lawn, to have nothing but plain green landscaping that he can’t even play on because of all the chemicals, to have expensive blooms and blossoms that he can’t pick.  How sad the house containing children but no Dixie cups of short-stemmed dandelions all over the countertops.  My heart actually breaks over the thought of children living in a house where blowing dandelion clocks is forbidden, lest the seeds take root and ruin the “look.”  No wishes or fairies dare come near such a domicile.  There’s a big difference between a house and a home, and to people like me, who believe firmly in fairies, wishes, and stubby little bouquets in paper cups, a house has a green, chemically-treated velvety lawn, and a home has grass, sprinkled with tiny golden stars.  And, if the children are especially lucky, lots of little purple violets, as well.

I believe that dandelions are flowers, in the same way that those expensive hybrid roses are flowers, and every bit as beautiful, especially when they’re thrust in our face by a grubby little child,  put in a Dixie cup, and placed where everybody can see and admire them.

Dandelions represent summer, and childhood, and the love of a little girl or boy for a parent, and a Dixie cup of stubby dandelions means more to me than anything delivered by the florist’s truck.

Put that Dixie cup on the coffee table between two cereal bowls containing floating periwinkle blossoms and catalpa blooms, and House Beautiful can go blow.  I prefer the individual touch when it comes to home decor.

I also welcome the fairies.  Heaven knows I can use all the wishes I can get.

What’s that?  You’re afraid of the bees?  Sissy.

This will make little difference to most of you, save that your New Year’s Eve will be hosted by someone else now. But to me, this is another one of so many things, lately, that I call “The end of my childhood.”

When my sister and I were little, my parents used to roll up the rugs and dance to American Bandstand. Other Sister and I would sit on the couch, the buckles of our Mary Janes catching on the upholstery and pulling out long oval threads until we kicked and broke the thread. Our couches always had long threads waving about in the breeze from the two open, “screened-in” windows in summer or the breeze from the registers in winter. Our sofas, when OS and I were little, always looked like something that had been rescued from the sunken Titanic, infested with tendrilled sea creatures.

We loved watching Mom and Dad dance. Occasionally they had friends over, and all of them danced. We had records and a player at home, and a radio, but they didn’t dance to those; they danced to American Bandstand. I overheard Mom say to a friend once, that “American Bandstand makes me feel like I’m at a party.” I think it had that same effect on a lot of young people back then.

Mom and Dad would have been in their twenties during this period; two twenty-somethings with two little girls, and I know now that those two little girls were the reason Mom and Dad did their dancing at home, and not at a real dance.

Except that, watching them laugh and dance, whirl and twirl in our living room, rolled-up rugs leaning in one corner, rock and roll music blaring from our black and white TV, I realize now that these not-all-that-long-out-of-their-teens young parents WERE at a real dance. As for my sister and I, sitting on that couch, legs so short they were sticking straight out, picking upholstery threads with our shoe buckles and breaking those threads right and left with our wiggles, we were like old-time movie children watching the ball from between the bannisters.

It was as if those dancers were someone else, not Mommy and Daddy, someone from the TV dance, laughing and jiving like real people who weren’t parents at all.

Like American Bandstand people. Magic people on the TV screen, only in living color ahead of its time, not black and white.

Dick Clark made that happen. It wasn’t just on TV that he encouraged young people to dance, and exposed them to new music. He did those things for people in living rooms, too.

Our living room. Our southern Indiana living room, where the American Bandstand theme music caused rugs to be rolled up, Mommies and Daddies to kick off their shoes and rock the casbah, and little girls to turn a sofa into a mess of fringe.

Thank you, Dick Clark.  In my heart you’ll always be young; you know, like you appeared to be even when you were old enough to be a grandfather, like the Picture of Dorian Gray.  To me, you’re not a New Year’s Eve host, or a game show host.  You’re Dick Clark, of American Bandstand, teaching the world to cut loose and dance, and encouraging us to listen to new and different music.

I’d tell you to rest in peace, but I know you never wanted that kind of peace.  Crank it up to eleven, angels, Dick Clark is in the building now.

Because I’m going to lay it on the line here, so stand back, bleeding hearts.

Disruptive people are bringing us all down.

Outside of a diagnosed problem, there is no excuse for acting up in public, whether that be a classroom, a mall, a store, a restaurant, a post office, or any other public place.  Or, for that matter, a private place.  Nice people behave at home, too.  (I am NOT speaking of SPED.)  When someone has a problem or condition that can’t be helped, I’m full of compassion.  But when someone chooses to behave in ways that hurt, hinder, or in any way keep a child from feeling safe and able to learn freely, my mother grizzly bear instincts spring into play.

I am not picking exclusively on students here, either.  Adults need to shape up as well.  Shame on any of you who chooses to behave poorly in public.

Nobody should be afraid to venture outside his/her own home.  That there are public places in this country that are not safe is a disgrace, and whose fault is it?

It’s the fault of all of us, for not speaking out and insisting that any and all disruptive, violent, dangerous people be removed from the premises and put where others can’t be harmed by them.  Why do we allow bullying?  Sure, there’s a lot of talk about anti-bullying policies, etc, but the bullies are just getting better at it.  There are children in our country who are afraid to go to school because of other children who are torturing them every day and getting away with it.

Back in the day, as George Washington might have said if he’d had to, except he DIDN’T have to because in his day, violent people were dealt with promptly and in a way that mightily discouraged repeat performances, a teacher’s problems consisted of gum, untucked shirts, spitballs, and the occasional talking-back, all of which were dealt with swiftly and firmly.  The teacher was in charge; the parents respected the teacher; the principal usually backed up the teacher, and since decent people were respected back then, the student knew that to be a decent person, he/she needed to shape up or look forward to five to ten in the pen.  At the very least, to be deprived of any further free public educational opportunities, because frankly, those belong to learners, not destroyers.

Said shaping-up to be done by the student, mind you.  Who else can do it?  Nobody, that’s who.

Now, of course, we have no place to put these youthful destroyers of our children’s educational and social opportunities, because there’s nobody home.  Even when a dangerous student IS – miracle of miracles – expelled, he/she is soon back in the classroom with a crap-ton of paperwork for the teacher, because, apparently, the welfare, peace of mind,  self-esteem, and learning opportunities of the nice majority mean nothing compared to the self esteem, placement, and rights of the mean minority.

Remember, I am not speaking of SPED here.  I am speaking of students who, of their own free will, have chosen to be bullies, creeps, jerks, disrupters, and pretty much anything else as long as it keeps YOUR children from a safe, wonderful, creative, artistic, did I mention SAFE, learning environment.  These are kids who want what they want and they want it NOW.  You know, like any kid, except that these kids DEMAND it at any cost, that cost generally paid by someone else.

People have criticized me for wanting dangerous students out of the building and as far away from genuine students as possible.  “Where will they go?”  “Where else can we put them?”  My answer was “I really don’t know nor do I care, as long as they’re away from the good kids who have rights, too, but you’d never know it because all the attention seems to be focused on the lowest common denominator.”  And people said, “Shame on you!  These kids need help!”  To which I say, “Yes.  Yes, they do, and I hope they get it, but NOT at the expense of the rest of the children of the nation.”   I want these violent kids to get help.  I want that help to be kind, sincere, and thorough.  And I want it to be given to them away from the other children, because children should not be exposed to violence in the first place, and especially not from other children.  And, violent children should not be given access to our children as targets.  Get the violent people AWAY from our children.  (Again, I’m not speaking of SPED here.)

But no.  Good, kind, creative, artistic, dreamy, sweet, intellectual kids are pretty much ignored, day after day, year after year, because everybody’s focused on the violent, dangerous, bullying kids whose self-esteem is apparently more important than that of a good child.

And so it continues: dangerous, disruptive kids sitting next to resigned, frightened actual students who would love to learn but who can’t because of the dangerous kids.

I don’t know the solution.

Too many ignorant people are breeding, and leaving the care and feeding of their kids to the system, maybe.

Too many silly, hormonal teens are breeding, and leaving the care and feeding of their kids to their elderly, tired grandparents, maybe.

Or could it be that our schools have somehow, and for some reason, given up any and all authority and have become yet another victim of student bullies with enabling or non-existent parents?

I’m kind of thinking a mash-up.

Just as I am a great believer in getting rid of mediocre teachers, I am also in favor of turning our schools back into halls of learning for serious students, not institutions where people dump their kids for free daycare and sue if there’s discipline.

Then again, I might just still be traumatized by the children in the post office today, running wild, screaming at the tops of their lungs, throwing everything in sight, bumping into people, and drawing on the walls, while their mom argued with the clerk because she couldn’t mail her gaudily gift-wrapped and be-ribboned-and-bowed birthday package as-is, without paying for a box.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it.

Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that a little shame – if someone has behaved shamefully – does more good than harm.  After all, self esteem means less than nothing unless it’s been honestly and personally earned, and if a student does something shameful, he/she ought to feel ashamed.

And don’t try to argue with me that shame and humiliation are the same thing.  They are not.  Buy a dictionary.

Shame is earned.  Humiliation is inflicted.  We get what we earn. Or should, anyway.

I need caffeine.

P.S.  Dear sweet well-behaved out-of-the-box conscientious questioning curious children who love to learn, I adore you, even when you pull the occasional shenanigans, and sometimes especially when you pull the occasional shenanigans.  Stay safe.  One day, those bullies – the ones who are employed, that is -  will be sweeping your office floors and unclogging your toilets.  Until then, try to avoid them.  And by all means, tell someone when they scare you.

I’m so sorry you have to endure them.

<——

1.  I’ve never been to a spa.  I have a sort of thing about people touching my feet, and if I got a manicure, I know I’d peel it all off before the sun went down.  Also?  My fingernails are so absolutely rock hard that it would embarrass me to hear the noise when the manicurist tried to clip them.

2.  I still haven’t ever used an ATM machine.

3.  I don’t speed.  I drive the speed limit.  If the weather is bad, I drive below the speed limit.  This insistence on obeying the law frustrates a lot of people, to whom I say, “Pfft.”

4.  I have not yet conquered my aversion to people who don’t read.  People who can’t read, I would help with every breath I took, but people who DON’T read?  To hell with them.

5.  I will never like people who don’t like Harry Potter.  I don’t intend to even try.  Such people are not worth the effort.

6.  I will never approve of any piece of writing being censored, brought up to date, or touched in any way, shape, or form by the Political Correctness Police.  Changing stories to suit the times or beliefs  should be a capital offense.  Yes, I know that means death.  I meant it to mean death.  Leave books alone.

7.  I still hate peas.  I hate their taste, their smell, and the icky way they develop a sort of film in the bowl.  However, I do, on occasion, enjoy the little “pea roll” games on the table.  Peas flick and roll really well.  You can’t do that with a green bean.

8.  People who bring dogs to public events?  Haven’t learn to endure them yet.   Service dog:  fine.  Sweet yappy little Muffin, wrapped in a hand-knitted sweater and riding in his vewwy own widdle cawwying case?  Pathetic. And smelly.

9.  I have never watched Spongebob.  Not interested. (Never watching Spongebob has replaced never watching Oprah.)

10.  If you don’t approve of Harry Potter, yet have a shelf full of Disney animated films, you are a bloody hypocrite, unworthy of the respect of any living thing on this and any other planet, solar system, or universe, regular or alternate.  I will never like, respect, or even try to endure you.  “Asinine” was never meant to be a lifestyle, morons.

Am I a snob?  Maybe, just a little.  Aren’t you?  Why not?  Shouldn’t everybody be, in some areas of life?

And if you’re going to be a moron, you should at least aim for consistency.

Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo is a MAGIC SPELL.  Live with it.

Or, deprive your kids of the experience; that’s your business.  But when they hit college and don’t have enough schema to make connections, don’t be surprised if they wash out.

Tinker Bell was a slut.  The mermaids were killers.  The Lost Boys tried to shoot Wendy out of the sky, and succeeded.  And if you knew what Red Riding Hood and the Wolf really did, or just how evil Hansel and Gretel’s witch was, or the fate of Cinderella’s stepmother, or how many times the wicked queen tried to kill Snow White, you’d pass out cold.

I’d pay a dollar to see that. *

Extra credit if you know that reference.

Oh, one more thing I still haven’t done?  Learned to deal calmly with people who don’t appreciate learning unless it conforms to their preconceived notions and beliefs and doesn’t rock the boat.

Mamacita says:

Happy Easter, everyone.

What? Oh, oops. . . . .

Here. This is more like it. I do love those vintage Easter postcards. I hated growing up and finding out that those baby kittens were probably going to eat those baby chicks. I would also hate to have to tell you all how old I was before I realized that the bunnies weren’t really responsible for all those eggs.

But ultimately, this is Easter to me.

And isn’t it wonderful that so many of us, with so many different beliefs, can hang out here in the Blogosphere and get along great and love each other without having to constantly proselytize and try to sway each other to our own beliefs?

Oh, sure, those people are online too, but I don’t pay much attention to them. Not here; not anywhere.

It’s the people whose beliefs are quietly lived every day, the people who show me by example what their values are, who get my attention.

And who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? If you don’t believe me, just look around for a minute or two. Think of your family.

And if you’re alone, look in the mirror.

See?

Happy Easter, dear internet people. Eat chocolate. Get together with family. Smile. Have some eggs. Rejoice over something.

It’s a good day for rejoicing. . . .

(Originally posted on Easter, 2005, but nothing’s changed since then.)

Oh, about that Easter Island head? It and its clone guard the entrance to the local city park. We carve limestone here.

Are you going to eat that Reese’s Egg?