The importance of wearing clean underwear and other motherly advice

Any of these phrases sound familiar to you?

Someday your face will freeze like that! … Just because your friends might be jumping off a cliff doesn’t mean you have to do it too…  Don't put that in your mouth, you don't know where it's been. Don’t you dare look at me like that… 

Why? Because I said so, that's why! ...  Did you flush? I was not put on this earth to be your personal slave… Always put on clean underwear in the morning, in case you're in an accident.

And my personal favorite…  I hope someday you have children just like you! The eternal “Mom Curse” which has haunted children since Eve broke up the first fistfight between Cain and Abel – before things really got serious.

Ah, Mother’s Day. This weekend,  mothers around the country will awaken to a day that honors them. They will receive crayon-colored cards made in school or day care. Some will get flowers or plants reminding, poignant reminders that most things on God’s good earth begin with a seed, take root and grow. I think an old Jewish proverb sums it well: A mother understands what a child does not say.

My mother, Norma Patricia Henry Stuteville, always has understood me, perhaps in ways even to this day I cannot fathom myself.  I often wonder what sacrifices she has made throughout her life to ensure that me and my sibs would have fewer sacrifices in our own lives... My Mom has been there for me in so many of life’s tribulations and triumphs.

          We know that motherhood isn’t necessarily about DNA or having the same last name. It’s been said that the best thing you can give a child is to give them roots and wings. Give them a foundation and give them the freedom to grow and to soar throughout life.  Mothers certainly are a catalyst for all of this and so much more.

But we don’t live in a perfect world even when you are the symbol of perfection. Remember the story about the Mom and Dad who somehow left their son behind in the big city and when they returned found him hanging out with all the religious scholars? And I cannot help but believe the same mother carried some heavy fear when her son was moving around the countryside, performing miracles and preaching a revolutionary way of life.

Moreover, I wonder if this particular mother ever got fed up with his forgetfulness as a youngster and said something many of us have heard before: Close the door, were you born in a barn?

I am blessed to have my Mom. May God bless all of our mothers. We need them now more than ever. We always have. And always will.