4 Lessons My Mom Taught Me
Happy Mother’s Day, friends!
I am so lucky to have a mom that is, as the kids say, amazeballs. When I was growing up, I always thought I would be just like my mom. I even looked like her; some of my high school teachers would periodically call me “Kathryn.” I thought I would live the same life my mom did—I would marry a rancher, raise our kids on a farm, and live in Nebraska near family for the rest of my life.
Spoiler alert: I did not marry a rancher.
Which is not to say that my mom did not prepare me (even unknowingly) for the life I chose of frequent moves, meeting new people, and times of loneliness. From the time I was a little girl, Mom has been teaching me useful life skills that I’d like to share with you.
Here are four of the best:
1. Cooking
Everybody’s got to eat, right? My mom taught me to bake before she taught me to cook, and I have a collection of pictures up in my kitchen of Mom, Grandma, and me, at about 2 years old, baking Grandpa’s favorite krinkle cookies.
My mom’s mom was a lunch lady back in the day when school lunches were homemade. I think cooking might be in my DNA. These cooking and baking skills have become so valuable over the years. First, Big Sarge isn’t a cook, and second, I find it a lot easier to introduce myself to new neighbors when I have a plate of chocolate chip cookies for them.
2. Quilting
My mom taught me how to sew and how to quilt when I was in high school. I made an enormous blue jean quilt to help keep me warm on cold bus rides for speech tournaments. Years later, when Big Sarge deployed to Afghanistan, I got a wild and crazy idea to make a quilt for every guy in his unit. Mom may have thought it couldn’t be done, but she and Grandma made a couple quilts anyway for the unit.
3. Organizing
You may not believe it if you were to look at my house now, but I was a messy teenager. Like, call-that-hoarding-TV-show messy. Mom got me on the straight and narrow…or maybe she sent me off the deep end. Does organizing books alphabetically by genre mean you have a problem? Anyway, thanks to Mom, I don’t need to freak out when the movers come because everything is already in a good place. I freak out later, when I find out that the movers have packed prescription medication or fresh tomatoes.
4. Never Give Up
I’ve wanted to quit so many times in my life—just give up and go back to the farm. I wanted to quit in basic when it took me three days to qualify on the rifle range. I wanted to quit when Big Sarge went to Korea (okay, that one I did go back to the farm). I wanted to quit when transferring to college number six set me back yet another year toward getting my bachelor’s degree.
But I won’t quit. My mom taught me better.
What has your mom taught you? Give a shout out in the comments below and join the conversation!
