My Mom Was So Mean!

On Mother’s Day, everyone seems to remember those tender, sentimental things about their moms, good-night songs and boo-boo kisses, but the things I remember about my mom were not so nice. In fact, my mom was downright mean!

I remember my mom packing for me the most rotten lunches. While the other kids were pulling out microwave pizzas, Little Debbie Star Crunches, and juice packs, I had a cold sandwich (on whole wheat bread, always), an apple, and a quarter for milk. I thought white bread was for rich people. And for breakfast, while others dined on sugar cereal, I had to eat cream of wheat, seriously. To this day, I would gag if I had to eat a bite of cream of wheat. On good days, we got oatmeal.

If depriving me of good food wasn’t bad enough, my mom did not allow for “creative expression” in my behavior. My mom’s word was law and I was never allowed to negotiate or explain what motivated my deviant behavior. She never bothered to ask me “why” I disobeyed; she just carried out the consequences. Once, as a Sparky in Awana, I dared to question why so-and-so was allowed to get away with things I wasn’t allowed to do. Mom matter-of-factly explained that so-and-so would be in jail one day, and, interestingly enough, she was right.

Mom would never do those great things that moms are supposed to do, like call my teacher and complain when I got a bad grade. When I told her about how someone at school was mean to me, she never had any sympathy; she would simply ask: what did you do wrong? I thought my mom liked school more than she liked me. Since mom paid for Christian school, school came before sports, TV, and spend-the-night parties. No compassion. Once, when I had gotten a particularly bad grade, I explained that I gotten the best grade in the entire class. Mom’s reply: that’s like saying Moe is smarter than Curly.

I had to go to bed every night at 9:00 p.m. Even in high school. I wasn’t allowed to turn on the TV by myself. I had to get permission to watch Alf, and that was about all I ever got to watch, except for the yearly Wizard of Oz special on CBS. I was the only kid I knew who had never seen Karate Kid or Top Gun. It was really, really embarrassing.

I wasn’t allowed to have a phone in my room, or a TV. I did get a Commodore 64 for Christmas one year, but no computer games. Of course, I didn’t have much time for games, anyway, I had to make good grades and practice piano everyday. I had to keep my room clean and help around the house. It was a hard life, compared to my friends, at least.

My mom was constantly embarrassing me. She bragged on me in the grocery store. She told everyone how sweet, smart, and pretty I was. She told them about all my achievements, no matter how small. When I got to Junior High, I had to ask her to stop, respectfully, of course. She did stop, at least when other people were around.

All this meanness didn’t stop when I became an adult, either. When my friends started getting married after highschool, my mother forbid it. She sent me off to college, instead.

This weekend my mom came up to visit us. Oddly enough, my really mean mother is now an extremely nice grandmother. She brings the boys candy, toys, and lets them do whatever they want. She keeps them up past their bedtime and lets them drink soda. I can’t believe she’s the same person who denied me Fruit Loops all those years. As for me, I’m finding that, by some strange twist of fate, I’m not very nice, either. I’m finding out that being nice is easy; it’s hard work to be mean. I only hope that I can be as mean a mother as my mom was to me