When I was a kid things were different, remember this was in the days when life and family had a solid structure, a father would go to work and mom would stay at home with the kids, the parents were the parents and the kids were the kids, there were rules; very structured rules. Mom ran the house and dad would come home after work and would met out the punishment. In some homes, like mine, mom was the judge, jury and the executioner, we never heard her use the "Wait till your father comes home" crap, justice was swift and merciless, without appeals or "Time Outs". Really who the hell came up with that "Time out" bullshit?, if my mother used that I would have been bad all the time just so I could get a "Time Out" and go off to my room to read, so I wasn't a social kid, I have learned to accept it, I didn't need friends. In my day(fuck I sound like an old guy) the threat of violence was usually enough to keep you out of trouble, unless you were like me.
In our house punishment was usually a quick smack (1) on the ass when we were little or on the mouth once we learned the naughty words, thats still something that we don't do around my mom, swear. Mom, if you're reading this, I ducked! I honestly don't remember my mother or father hitting us when we were kids, but I have a vague memory of being spanked a few times, but I'm sure it happened a hell of a lot more than that, I was a typical boy and I got into a lot of shit just like any other boys, perhaps a little more than some, the ones I got caught for. The ones I got caught for would make for a long blog and the ones I didn't get caught for would give my parents fits, maybe some other time I'll post about those.
My brothers and I still joke and tease our mom about her long arms that are faster than a speeding bullet and the range of an ICBM, or can reach you from the other end of the table, even with the extra leaves in or that well placed kick when there was company over for dinner.
Actually, in our house the real punishment was our parents "Disappointment", the spanking was just to let us know the real punishment was coming, kind of like the "Young Offenders Act". I know every religion claims that their mothers do guilt better than the next one, but really its not a religion thing, its just plain and simple a mother thing, err not mothers; women would be more correct, I know women who don't have kids that are pretty damn good at it. Mom had her WGS and dad would just tell you, you always know where you stand with dad, there's no bullshit, if he's happy its all OK, if not he'll be pissed and then its not mentioned again.
I just had a thought, could it be that our mothers have conditioned us to feel guilt in the glare of any woman, this is something I'll have to look into.
I remember a few years ago my mom called me up in the morning about 9 or 10, now I knew this meant that she wanted something because in my family a phone call is something reserved for when you need something or someone has passed on (we'll talk more about death in a future post). Anyway, so I get this call from mom in the morning and I of course answered it, I would never screen moms calls, even if in those days we didn't have caller ID, oh yeah forgot to mention, it was minus 40 and there was about a meter of fresh snow and I just got to sleep after a 12 hour nightshift. So answering was the first mistake, and heres the second, when mom, as usual, asks "Did I wake you" of course I lied and said "No, I was just getting ready for bed. What's up?", not that telling the truth would have changed the outcome of this call. The conversations always start the same "Oh, nothing really, I just need to......." and they always end with me saying yes after her "Weaponized Guilt Sigh", you know the one and unless you're made of stone or a clone you cave!
So this time she needs to go to the dentist which I will grudgingly admit is a pretty important thing to do, even if its -40 and snowing and you're snuggled in a warm and perfect for sleeping bed after a hard nightshift. I should mention that I do have 2 brothers: 1 seems to be immune to the "SIGH", the other has caller ID and both brothers were smart enough to get day jobs. By the time I drive over to her house and shovel the snow to her door and the driveway because her car is in there and it would be nice if she could get out. After all the shoveling I took mom to the dentist, so as I'm looking for a parking spot she says "Just park in front, I'll only be a few seconds, just dropping a cheque off" and then she jumps out rushes into the building and true to her word, she was out in just a minute. As she jumps back in the car she mentions that she needs milk and would I mind stopping by the local supermarket!
Needles to say she is my mom and of course I will always be susceptible to the WGS, but thankfully the range is slightly less than the distance from there to here, but I'm in for a near fatal dose the next time I'm in range!
I know no one should ever ask or divulge a woman's age, I must stress that my mom is a young vibrant woman capable of working as hard or harder than most women half her age and that the incident I was just talking about was many years ago, she would have been 45 or so at the time.
(1) To be fair to my parents and so none of the "Violence begets violence" crowd attack me or my parents for child abuse, understand that I am not in the least affected by the punishments we received as children, even though I still duck when ever mom reaches for the peas at the dinner table or have an aversion to wire coat hangers, seriously, I think it's a knee jerk reaction or maybe the residual guilt for all the shit we did as kids. If this post offends you, please feel free to bugger off and come back when you have found a sense of humour, I think humour is right next to the sense of irony, just below self depreciation and above sarcasm.
In our house punishment was usually a quick smack (1) on the ass when we were little or on the mouth once we learned the naughty words, thats still something that we don't do around my mom, swear. Mom, if you're reading this, I ducked! I honestly don't remember my mother or father hitting us when we were kids, but I have a vague memory of being spanked a few times, but I'm sure it happened a hell of a lot more than that, I was a typical boy and I got into a lot of shit just like any other boys, perhaps a little more than some, the ones I got caught for. The ones I got caught for would make for a long blog and the ones I didn't get caught for would give my parents fits, maybe some other time I'll post about those.
My brothers and I still joke and tease our mom about her long arms that are faster than a speeding bullet and the range of an ICBM, or can reach you from the other end of the table, even with the extra leaves in or that well placed kick when there was company over for dinner.
Actually, in our house the real punishment was our parents "Disappointment", the spanking was just to let us know the real punishment was coming, kind of like the "Young Offenders Act". I know every religion claims that their mothers do guilt better than the next one, but really its not a religion thing, its just plain and simple a mother thing, err not mothers; women would be more correct, I know women who don't have kids that are pretty damn good at it. Mom had her WGS and dad would just tell you, you always know where you stand with dad, there's no bullshit, if he's happy its all OK, if not he'll be pissed and then its not mentioned again.
I just had a thought, could it be that our mothers have conditioned us to feel guilt in the glare of any woman, this is something I'll have to look into.
I remember a few years ago my mom called me up in the morning about 9 or 10, now I knew this meant that she wanted something because in my family a phone call is something reserved for when you need something or someone has passed on (we'll talk more about death in a future post). Anyway, so I get this call from mom in the morning and I of course answered it, I would never screen moms calls, even if in those days we didn't have caller ID, oh yeah forgot to mention, it was minus 40 and there was about a meter of fresh snow and I just got to sleep after a 12 hour nightshift. So answering was the first mistake, and heres the second, when mom, as usual, asks "Did I wake you" of course I lied and said "No, I was just getting ready for bed. What's up?", not that telling the truth would have changed the outcome of this call. The conversations always start the same "Oh, nothing really, I just need to......." and they always end with me saying yes after her "Weaponized Guilt Sigh", you know the one and unless you're made of stone or a clone you cave!
So this time she needs to go to the dentist which I will grudgingly admit is a pretty important thing to do, even if its -40 and snowing and you're snuggled in a warm and perfect for sleeping bed after a hard nightshift. I should mention that I do have 2 brothers: 1 seems to be immune to the "SIGH", the other has caller ID and both brothers were smart enough to get day jobs. By the time I drive over to her house and shovel the snow to her door and the driveway because her car is in there and it would be nice if she could get out. After all the shoveling I took mom to the dentist, so as I'm looking for a parking spot she says "Just park in front, I'll only be a few seconds, just dropping a cheque off" and then she jumps out rushes into the building and true to her word, she was out in just a minute. As she jumps back in the car she mentions that she needs milk and would I mind stopping by the local supermarket!
Needles to say she is my mom and of course I will always be susceptible to the WGS, but thankfully the range is slightly less than the distance from there to here, but I'm in for a near fatal dose the next time I'm in range!
I know no one should ever ask or divulge a woman's age, I must stress that my mom is a young vibrant woman capable of working as hard or harder than most women half her age and that the incident I was just talking about was many years ago, she would have been 45 or so at the time.
(1) To be fair to my parents and so none of the "Violence begets violence" crowd attack me or my parents for child abuse, understand that I am not in the least affected by the punishments we received as children, even though I still duck when ever mom reaches for the peas at the dinner table or have an aversion to wire coat hangers, seriously, I think it's a knee jerk reaction or maybe the residual guilt for all the shit we did as kids. If this post offends you, please feel free to bugger off and come back when you have found a sense of humour, I think humour is right next to the sense of irony, just below self depreciation and above sarcasm.
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