When reading some Southern sayings the other day, I started to think about the short stories I'm working on. "Drawing Back a Nub" will feature stories about growing up with an old-school, down-home mother.
It has dawned on me that a lot of the parenting techniques my mother used back when I was a kid would land someone in jail today. Kids are so easily "traumatized" today that parents are cautious about "harming their psyche". Whatever. I'm not going to bash what other people do, but I know that nothing my mother did cause any trauma or harmed my psyche. She 'harmed' my backside with a switch plenty of times, but never without a reason or a positive result. And what are those results? Well, I've never been in jail, I am respectful to my elders, and I have nothing but good memories of the way my mother raised me.
One of the things my mother (and most other Southern mothers) was known for was a way with words. Here are some of the things I can remember Mom saying to me at some point during my youth:
- "Girl, sit down before I snatch a crook in your neck." (How exactly does one 'snatch a crook' in someone's neck?)
- "You better take your hand off that bone you call a hip when you're talking to me." (These days, I wish I could still find that bone under all this fat!)
- "Sit your little narrow ass down before I pop a knot on it." (Pop a knot? On my behind? Wha???)
- "Comb that part out of the middle of your hair, looking like Sister Tutta." (To this day, I have no idea who Sister Tutta was. Apparently she had bad fashion sense because she came up often in the critiques of my own hair and wardrobe choices.)
- "I'll slap that nasty little attitude of yours across the street." (Well... dang!)
- "I'll slap the taste out of your mouth."
- "You gonna draw back a nub" was said if you reached for something you shouldn't be reaching for. That one is harsh!
When I was reading that article about regional sayings, I had one mystery cleared up. Apparently when my mother said someone was "Drunk as (or drunker than) Cooter Brown", she was speaking of a well-known town drunk. That saying was right there on the list I saw. (And here I spent years trying to identify which of my parent's friends lived under that Alias.)
I look at kids today and wonder what they are going to remember about their parent's discipline methods. I suppose most will involve having their electronics taken away. Maybe being restricted from surfing the Internet will be the biggest punishment. Huh. They have no idea! I think the worst thing my mother ever did to me was not to give me a "whooping" but to have me go out to the yard and pick out the switch she was going to use.
There is "power in the tongue" as the Bible teaches. I know that is the truth. My mother didn't always speak "discipline", she spoke "love". The power of my mother's love didn't save any of us kids from making errors in judgment, dealing with heartbreak and heartache, or keep us out of every bad situation we got into. What her love did was keep us from giving in to any of that. When we fell down due to our problems, we never stayed down. When we lost one fight to get ahead, we didn't tap out. Our mother's love is with us to this day. She's been gone now for 20 years now and we still abide by her advice and guidance. There were a few times in my life when I had the chance to make a lot of money but I'd hear Mama's voice saying that "a lifetime of luxury in this life is not worth an eternity of regret in the next."
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I WILL be checking out this site asap!
I remember this saying so well. |
So, yeah, Mama could be rough on us. We got scolded and "whooped" with switches, and we were told when we were wrong. But we turned out okay. To be honest, the only trauma I suffer from today is being afraid of all the kids who didn't have a mother like mine.
Peace
--Free
P.S.: I wrote this post so long ago that I have forgotten where I got the list of sayings I mentioned. I just went and searched out a couple of sources that you might enjoy:
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