Things My Mother Said
Jacqueline F. Kelly
April 12, 1927- May 9, 1998
Mother, wife, grandmother, artist
Philadelphia, PA
- Ø “Bored? You’re bored? I wish I could to be bored.” (It was always a mistake to tell my mother that you were bored. All day long she made suggestions on what you could do not to be bored. You could clean your room, mow the lawn, do the laundry, empty the dishwasher, read a book, etc. etc. etc. The list went on all day long.
- Ø “Anybody want a cup of tea?” (She drank tea all day long and she always wanted at least one of us to join her.)
- Ø “You’re a brat!!” (Everyone was a brat).
- Ø “What kind of craft do you like to do? Do you do anything with your hands?” (My mother was very talented and made lots of things. She always assumed that all women liked to do crafts and was surprised when she found women who did not.
- Ø “I have some chocolate hidden in the dining room. Want a piece of chocolate?”
- Ø “I’m only coming to school once to pick you up so everyone better be ready.”
- Ø “Oh darn, if you only tried a little harder, you could have had a 4.0.” (A comment she made to my sister who came home from college with a 3.9 GPA.
- Ø “Oh, that looks ugly on you. Take it off. You look like an old lady.” (I admit that my mother had a better sense of fashion than I did. But she rarely liked anything I picked out myself.)
- Ø “I have more sense of fashion in my little pinky than you have in your whole body.”
- Ø “When you get married, don’t have kids. Be a rich aunt without kids. You get to travel all the time. It’s so much fun”.
- Ø “Get out of here.” (If it wasn’t thundering and lightning, we had to stay outside until it was time to eat. Sometimes we would come home for lunch and it would be waiting for us on the porch.)
- Ø “Don’t call me Mom. I’m so tired of hearing that name. Call me Jackie or call me Mrs. Kelly but don’t call me Mom any more today. Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom. That’s all I hear all day.”
- Ø “Hi honey are you home. Pick up the phone I know you’re there. Pick up the phone and speak to me. It’s your mother. OK, I guess you aren’t home. Call me back.“
- Ø “Oh shit!” (Her favorite expression. It flowed so freely from her mouth.)
- Ø “Get up, I made breakfast.” (If we came home late on a Saturday night, she was sure to make breakfast early on Sunday morning.
- Ø “School days, schools days, dear old golden school days. Reading and writing and arithmetic.” (She sang this song with such delight on the first day of school. I hated this song).
- Ø “Don’t tell your other grandmother that I say ‘oh shit’ all the time”. (A constant request to her grandchildren).
- Ø “Let’s not talk about it. Mary is our friend and our comments may be hurtful.” (In 1992, Mary’s daughter had just announced that she was a lesbian. The news shocked my mother’s friends. In a conversation, one person made a derogatory comment about lesbians and my mother chimed in. The group of friends all agreed to watch what they said.
