A Funny Parenting Realization

If I was ever being naughty/annoying/whiny, my mum would say, “Pull your head in”.

The other day I said the same thing to my 4yo daughter.

Her response?

“No, YOU pull your head in.”

#karma #owned

When I was little, I’d eye-roll at my mom’s propensity to say “we” in referring to things about me. “We’re a little nervous to be here,” she’d say, while looking at me, to my endocrinologist every time I sat in the examination room. Or, “we’re a little shy” when I’d hide behind her leg. I now think it’s the sweetest thing because I know what it’s like to feel someone else’s heart as an extension of your own. And I look forward to my someday-kids harassing me with annoyance, “MOM, I’M nervous. Not You.”

Yesterday I admitted to myself and my sister the way in which I am becoming my mom (gulp): I think everyone is on drugs. My cashier at Marshalls. The lady in the bathroom stall in front of me. Etc etc etc. Can’t believe this is happening?!

i think i make a similar face to your mother’s when my daughter is misbehaving…she calls it my ‘hornet face’.

One of the scariest realizations of my adult life was when I realized that I am becoming my grandfather! (I love him dearly and admire him greatly, there really are worst people I could turn out like.) Using his hand gestures, speech patterns, verbal pauses (“hmm”, especially to emphasis questions) and, of course, some of his sayings.
“Keep it between the ditches” when driving
“Damn it Earl!” (a farm hand on his family farm when he was growing up)
The have “the personalty of a wet dish cloth”
and many many others

Yes! I love this! My mom would play the same songs over and over again. I have a playlist called “homesick playlist where I play those songs over and over! Lots and billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel

I don’t know if these are general expressions, as I’ve never heard them anywhere else, but when my Mum pretended to be angry she’d say things like I’ll beat you up like an ox in cabbage, or when we ate well, she’d say that we eat like Peter the Blizzard (both roughly translated from Croatian). I often use these with my girl and we both end up giggling ?

The timing of this post is impeccable. Tomorrow I am traveling with my five month old baby boy to meet my parents for the first time since he was born. I live abroad and had to wait a long time for his passport and my parents are too old to make the journey, but now they will finally get to meet their first grandchild.

Over these last few months I’ve found myself singing songs to my baby that I didn’t even know I remembered from when I was growing up. It makes me teary eyed to think that my parents are probably not going to be around much longer, but I’m happy to realise I remember much more of what they said and did when I was a child than I thought I did.

My dad was always a gold mine for weird expressions. He would say things like (roughly translated) “tired as a stocking” and “ready as a monkey” and still to this day I’m not sure which of these were actual expressions in my mother tongue and which he made up.

Total eclipse of the heart is THE best karaoke song ever. Possibly the best song ever. Especially to dance out dramatically on the dance floor ;)

Wonderful! “Adventures” and bookstores are my stay-at-home-mom mainstays! And I loved the ankle-grabbing as a child (my son does not appreciate it as much!). My mom is very playful and a bit dark and one line she’d always use if we were complaining about our stomach/finger/etc. hurting (especially if we were trying to get out of something) was, “Your *butt’s* about to hurt, in a minute.” My kids aren’t quite old enough to appreciate this one, but the other day when texting I was able to flip it back to her and winky, kissy emojis followed :)

As for songs it seemed always Van Morrison greatest hits in the car, James Taylor greatest hits on Sunday afternoon and Dionne Warwick or Harry Belafonte while my mom made dinner. I think about this often when setting a musical tone for our days, it was so formative for me.

I loved reading these comments, I do love a good saying and I picked up a few from my mum which I now use regularly. One is whenever my son leaves the door open, ‘Were you born in a tent?’ Cue look of confusion.
Another is ‘better than a slap in the face with a wet fish’. The funny thing is that I get them wrong sometimes which is what my dad does. I was having an argument with my husband and indignantly said ‘well it’s better than a wet fish’! Who can argue with that haha!

My sibs and I gifted my dad a list we made of his (many!) regular sayings from our childhood for his 60th birthday. There’s a 15 year span between first and last kid, so the older ones and younger ones had several that didn’t overlap. But the classics – we all knew those and still say them to each other. ;)

These comments are gold and I’ve found a few to adopt! I lost my dad 6 years ago and recently had a baby boy. It makes me sad to know they’ll never get to know eachother because my dad was a really wonderful person. However, I’ll find myself using some of his funny sayings like “bedtime for bonzo!” when we’re getting ready for bed , “let me taste that to make sure it’s not poisonous” when my husband is eating something I want a bite of, “Dad Blammit!” instead of cursing. Whenever these things come out of my mouth I feel like he’s still here and I love that my son will get to hear these silly little phrases of my dad’s through me.

Another I’ve adopted from my mom is “moving slower than molasses in January”. Something her dad used to say to her :-) Love how these phrases travel through generations!

Right now I’m in the Public Library and I walked up to a Senior Gentleman who was already sitting in a seat, while an empty seat is attached to his.

“Is this seat taken?”
“No dear. I can only sit in one chair.” (giggle)

Love these so much! I’m sure I’m turning into my mom in so many more ways than I realize and that it will come out even more once we have kids but for now there are two things that stand out to me. The first is that when we were out at a restaurant and we spilled or dropped anything my mon would say, “I can dress you up but I can’t take you out!” I say this to my husband now haha. The other thing (which drives my husband nuts) is that I will think I haven’t seen a movie and then realize 15-20 minutes in that I have seen it. As a kid I totally didn’t understand how this was possible – how could you not know from the description? From the actors? From the first five minutes? But now I know… It’s possible! ?

My dad would do anything to embarrass us in public. He always used to threaten to sing “In the Good Old Summertime'” while in restaurants. Then he would sing the first word “IN” really loud!! We would just die!!

Posts like this always make me a bit sad. I remember commenting on a previous Cup of Jo post about a very difficult relationship with my mother, and many readers echoing the same sentiment. I hope I am NOT like my mother in so many ways. She wasn’t abusive (physically) but she certainly left a narcissistic, difficult mark. I would love Cup of Jo to explore this more, as I feel there are so many people in this boat.

When we would ask our dad something he didn’t feel like doing, he’d say:’That’s too bad, my religion prevents me from doing so.’ We’re not religious btw.
When we would answer with ‘I think so’ he’d reply with ‘I need you to know so, not to think so’ ,used to drive me crazy, that one ?
When ‘tasting’ a snack he’d say ‘This is awfull, you’re not gonna like this, I’ll do you a favor and finish it myself’ ?

My dad would always say, “Taxes…” and slowly fly his spoon over to our ice-cream sundae to take a bite. It was inevitable. It was unavoidable. And we would put our heads back, “Nooooooooo” and he would just laugh a genial, amused laugh.
I find this hilarious now, as a tax-paying adult, and fully intend to implement it with my children!

Neither of my Parents said these, but after having our 2nd child and noticing how different I had to Parent him from our first.

If my Husband is getting himself cornered into an argument/situation with our youngest son, I will say 1 of 3 things to him:
“Pick your battles.”
“Remember now, he’s only 3 years old.”
“Only one of you is gonna end up crying & it’s not my baby.”

My Husband loves an argument/debate BUT you can’t do that every time with a 3yo child, who can scream & rant with a high anxiety Mum.

I think the COJ community just wrote its first coffee table book.

In my culture it’s rude to stand or walk while eating. If we did this, our Mother would say, “Are you a peasant?” or “Who raised you?”

If my younger brothers and I were fighting or if someone was crying from a fight, our Mother would say “Someone is going to eat the broom.” or “I’m coming in there and ALL of you will be crying.”

If we didn’t finish our food, “We ate once a day until Sundays.” As Sundays after Church the whole family would gather for an elaborate feast & there would be leftovers to last 2-3 days.

I use most of her sayings, because they remind me of her and my Grandmother.

When eating baked potatoes as kids, both my mom and husbands mom used to say, “I scrubbed the skins” to let us know its safe to eat the potato skins. Now when we both eat baked potatoes we laugh and say, “the skins are scrubbed”.

My mom always told me to pack my swimsuit in my carry-on, not my suitcase. Just in case the suitcase got lost, I had my swimsuit on hand. You can replace other items easily, but a swimsuit not so much.

http://www.heylibi.com/2018/04/04/recalling-sage-swimwear-advice-from-my-mom/

I lost my dad at 20, and have been struggling to find a balance between remembering him and trying to move on from the loss.

Your post made me smile because I had completely forgotten that my dad also used to squeeze my ankle while he was driving. Thank you for giving me this memory back.