When growing up, a lot of us heard that ‘Mother knows best’, but in my case my dad knows best the majority of the time. Please keep in mind that my mom taught me the majority of the things I will need in life due to the fact I used to watch her like a hawk because she seemed like she never slept and could go on for days. But moms are supposed to teach us about everything we will need to learn in life and know where we do not want to mess up potentially with our future children. Please keep in mind that my mother is no exception to anything, but someone who is the greatest example in my life. So let me cut to the chase on what my mother has taught me.
1. Cleaning...
I grew up thinking it was normal that people had relatively clean homes, but I soon learned that mom had extremely bad OCD. This made me grow up to think that it was not okay to have clothes and things all over the house, but of course I grew out of that, yet I learned how to clean to an extent that would make her somewhat proud.
2. Attitude
I am someone who has an awful attitude at the worst possible times and I strongly believe I inherited it from my mother. Yes, she is a 'Southern Belle' and seems so remarkably happy, but this woman scares the mess out of me the majority of the time. She will go on a rampage about my shoes or stuff from college, and of course, me being her daughter, I want to put the last word in and make a smart comment. Keep in mind, that this approach has led to me being chased with a spoon, yelled at, or given 'the look'. I think this is the worst trait I inherited.
3. SHOPPING
This is the worst behavior I have learned from my mother because it makes my dad stress. I have learned how to spend an ungodly amount of money in the matter of minutes, but it is all during a sale. My mom used to love taking me shopping because she could get away with buying me a Barbie and some clothes, but now she can only get away with buying me food. She has two other daughters and three grandchildren, but I am still somehow the most expensive of the lot. This learned behavior is my downfall because I do not know how to say "no" to my love of Bath and Body Works or shoes or buying other people things. It makes me cringe a lot more than it should.
4. How to stress out my dad
My dad is someone who went through the military, so of course he has a huge patience of stress until it comes to me and my sisters. Mom has this remarkable talent of stressing him out beyond belief for she is someone who loves to give to people in situations that are honestly less than desirable. I somehow do the same by getting into wrecks, moving away and getting hurt, and a long list of other things. Keep in mind my dad likes to stress eat and he is a diabetic, so I am sorry to the man who helped conceive me.
5. To accomplish the difficult
My mom has given me some pretty awful things to learn from, but she taught me how to accomplish what I want. She went to school full time to gain a Bachelor's degree in Radiology all the while having three children and a husband who was stationed away. This put into me that excuses do not matter whatsoever because she could do it, so why can't I?
6. To love
My mom has one of the biggest hearts that I have ever known. She would do anything for anyone, even if it meant that I needed to be without. She is the one to forgive a lot of people, but it takes some time. She is the one who taught me family matters because in the end there will be mostly them if you treat them right. I appreciate this because it taught me how to create relationships in which everything is clear right off the bat. I have an overall love for every single being on the planet right off the bat until proven otherwise and I think that is hard for most in the world to be able to comprehend.
7. To be me
My favorite trait from her by far: she taught me that no one else matters in the eyes of her when she thinks about me. She loved me every moment of my life even when she wanted to kill me a few times. I can promise that this showed me how to be my own person in a world of people who want everyone to conform to social norms. My mother is always open to my plenty of ideas, and this is what inspired me to put them out in the open. I think this is the one where it seems the most expected, but does not happen often.
Overall in life, my mother taught me to be a woman who was a woman to be feared, loved, and inspired. She was the woman that I wanted to be growing up, and I know today that I could never be half of the one she was. I never saw and had to deal with what she had to, but I am learning from her every step of the way. I think my greatest role model was her, to some extent, and this makes me think of the things that I am waiting to learn from her because she seems to be waiting to teach me.
