For today’s Moment of Peace, at church, on Mother’s Day, I planned to read a poem I had written about being a mother. Unfortunately, every time I read it—heck, even looked at it—I cried.
Believing that making people weep on Mother’s Day is probably bad form, I sought a different path. Instead, I found some funny, light-hearted thoughts about being a mother that I hope bring smiles rather than tears.
We’ll start with a few thoughts from Reader’s Digest, Originally Published: April 24, 2018.
- Silence is golden, unless you have kids. Then silence is suspicious.
- When your ‘Mom Voice’ is so loud, even the neighbors brush their teeth and get dressed.
- When my kids act up in public, I like to yell, ‘Wait till I tell your mom!’ and pretend they’re not mine.
Then there was Phyllis Diller who said, "I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them."
“Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease.” Says Lisa Alther.
"No matter how old a mother is,” says Florida Scott Maxwell, “she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement."
Ambrose Bierce wrote, "Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly."
"There is only one pretty child in the world,”
according to a Chinese Proverb, “and every mother has it."
"When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out." Remember Erma Bombeck?
Peter De Vries claims: "A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car for ever after."
Olivia Wilde says, "If I wasn't at work, I just wanted to stay home and party with my little man--and by 'party' I mean, of courese, endless rounds of 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'."
"Working mothers are guinea pigs in a scientific experiment to show that sleep is not necessary to human life." Anonymous, but probably female.
Here are a few random thoughts:
A mother is the person you can always call to see how long chicken lasts in the fridge.
"Mom, I love and your super long voicemails."
Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out.
If at first you don't succeed, try doing it the way your mom told you to do it from the start.
And this final thought from Penelope Cruz:
"All those cliches, those things you hear about having a baby and motherhood--all of them are true. And all of them are the most beautiful things you will ever experience."
Wishing you smiles on this Mothers Day.
(Mother’s Day Moment for Peace, First United Methodist Church, Alamosa, CO, 8 May 2022)
