"Mom, check out that baby. How old do you think it is?"
"Maybe two months? Barely even a person in training."
"Look at its little chin!"
"All babies look like Winston Churchill."
This was a brief conversation that occurred in the checkout line of a Target just this morning. While we began unloading our items, I quickly took out my phone and recorded this newest quotable life lesson - "All babies look like Winston Churchill." I'm not sure whether this was meant as an insult to the great British wartime leader, to newborn babies, or perhaps as a compliment to both. Whatever it was, I take it as a now ageless adage to be remembered.
Shortly after this incident, while walking down the hall of our hotel, my mother began making loud howling sounds. These continued despite my embarrassed attempts to quiet her. The explanation given was simple - she was a bloodhound. She posed a simple question - what if she had smelled a pheasant and needed to alert me? There would, clearly, be no reasoning with her. I'll admit it, for a while I was angry. She was being childish, forcing me to be the adult in a public setting.
But I was wrong. As I showered that evening, still stewing, another memory occurred to me - a true piece of advice. My mother once, on the subject of pregnancy and children, told me "Never tell anyone what you want to name your child. You don't want to hear why the name isn't good, and you don't want their suggestions." Her point had been a good one, and one I realized was actually applicable to a number of other situations.
In trying to silence my mother's bloodhound imitations, I was doing just the same thing. I was taking a harmless moment of pleasure for my mother and turning it into what I wanted, what I thought was best. Maybe, in a sense, I was even trying to make her conform with some sort of idea of how she should have behaved as a mother. This isn't a rare sort of thing - either for me or my mother. My mother does a number of animal imitations - from donkey to baby black bear, and now bloodhound. Come Thanksgiving dinner, she's going to display her talents (and likely call upon me for what really is an excellent chicken cluck). I'll be embarrassed, I always am. I might even wish that she, like everything else, would fit into a nice little box - be exactly what I expect.
We can learn a number of things from our parents, our mothers especially. But the true wisdom, the true advice and life lessons, don't come how we expect them to. They don't come in succinct quotes or household rules. They come in these moments and experiences. Take a moment sometime, reflect on what you've learned, maybe what you didn't even realize was a lesson.
Babies look like Winston Churchill - my future children will look like old British men and that's okay. I looked like an old man, my mother looked like an old man - I'm descended from a line of old wrinkled man babies and so are you. And, just to break up the mental image of wrinkled mustached men, I'll leave you with a final quote from my mother. As for what it means, well it means something a little different to everyone.
"If you're 150 pages through War and Peace and you still don't like it, put it down. Don't waste your time when there's so much more to read."
