Things your parents used to say...

[Flyingcursor]

Agggh. This is turning tragic.


From my Dad: "The guitar is not a toy. If you want to learn to play it, I'll teach you but you don't play with it."

[I.D.10-t]

“you can't polish a turd”
“even a blind pig gets a nut once in a while”

Words of wisdom...

[Charlene]

Why is it we all remember the bad comments? (Myself included.)

From my mother:

Don't sit on the cold concrete without a cushion, you'll get diarrhea.

Don't ever sit down on a public toilet seat unless you put paper on it first.

(When I was in my 20s and talking about moving out) - Go ahead, move out. Then a burgular will break in and he'll rape you and you'll wind up pregnant and I'll have an illegitimate grandchild!! (I never did get up enough gumption to move out and I wish I had.)

(When I was going on a date with someone I wasn't really thrilled about, but just going out for something to do) - Be careful who you date. You'll wind up pregnant and have to get married and then you'll wish you had gone out with a nice guy.

Go ahead, write the fan letter. But don't be disappointed when he doesn't answer. He's a big star and won't answer a fan's letter. I wish you wouldn't write, I hate to see you be disappointed and cry. (Man, I wish she was still alive - I'd show her all the e-mail I've gotten from a star who really does answer fan mail (and who I hope I can actually call a friend now))

Don't run with that lollipop in your mouth, you'll fall and jam it down your throat and die.

My father's comments were a bit better:

(Before a date) - Be good. If you can't be good, be careful. (This earned him a really nasty look from my mother)

(Bug splats) - Takes guts to stick there.

Although even my father could scare me:

Don't stick your tongue out when roller skating, if you fall you'll bite the tip of your tongue off.

*************
Makes a person wonder how we all managed to grow up reasonably intact, physically and mentally - well, most of us!

[susnfx]

Holy cow, Charlene! These all sound so funny now, when they're just random sentences, but it sounds like your mom had, um, issues.
The one about sitting on concrete is hilarious. (I wrote to Troy Donohue [be still, my heart] when I was a teenager and got a signed picture back.)

Susan

[Bloomfield]

[susnfx]

Wow. That's him, all right. Haven't thought about him in years. Thanks, Bloo!

Susan

(I sang "There's a Summer Place" with a trio at our Sophomore Skid in high school...ahh, Troy...)

[Charlene]

Holy cow, Charlene! These all sound so funny now, when they're just random sentences, but it sounds like your mom had, um, issues.
The one about sitting on concrete is hilarious. (I wrote to Troy Donohue [be still, my heart] when I was a teenager and got a signed picture back.)

Susan

Yes, she did. And the older she got the worse she got. It's taken me a long time to stop believing all that she said. (But I do use seat covers in public toilets!)

[Darwin]

Don't run with that lollipop in your mouth, you'll fall and jam it down your throat and die.

Remember Andy Devine? ("Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me!")

Nah, you're probably way too young. Here he is (on the left):



He got that squeeky voice when he was a kid. He was running with a stick in his mouth, fell down, and tore his vocal cords.

If you hadn't listend to your mother, you might have ended up as a famous movie star, yourself.

[Charlene]

Don't run with that lollipop in your mouth, you'll fall and jam it down your throat and die.

Remember Andy Devine? ("Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me!")

Nah, you're probably way too young. Here he is (on the left):



He got that squeeky voice when he was a kid. He was running with a stick in his mouth, fell down, and tore his vocal cords.

If you hadn't listend to your mother, you might have ended up as a famous movie star, yourself.

Gee - I could've been a star!

I've seen Andy Devine in some old movies, and wondered why his voice was that way.

[Flyingcursor]

At about 6 years old I fell off the couch with a big stick in my mouth and it stabbed the back of my throat.

To this day if I see a kid running with any kind of object in their mouth I say, "Get that out of your mouth." I've said it to stranger's kids before and I sure do get nasty looks. However it scares the bejiminy out of me.

[avanutria]

Wasn't there a thread on here some years back, about a kid who had been running with a whistle in her mouth? She did some damage to the roof of her mouth when she fell, I believe.

My grandmother has a gouged scar line on her tongue, she had been holding a fork in her mouth as a child and had some sort of similar accident.

[jbarter]

Wasn't there a thread on here some years back, about a kid who had been running with a whistle in her mouth? She did some damage to the roof of her mouth when she fell, I believe.

That was Adam, my youngest son, marching around with a toy trumpet. A nasty rip in the roof of his mouth, a worrying night in hospital, but fortunately no permanent ill effects. (Unless you count the fact that he now plays piano accordion )

[Trad_A_Non]

From my maternal grandfather:

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream ...

This would be gravely intoned when we kids were bellyaching about something. Another favorite of his was ...

Ya can't be a dope all yer life.

.. usually said when we'd done something remarkably stupid. If I asked him a question he didn't care to answer for some reason, this is what I'd get in reply:

Cat's fur to make kitten's britches.

From my father ...

If you don't rise to the bait, you don't get hooked.

... which is actually quite good advice. Another observation of his ...

If you lie down with the dogs, you'll get up with fleas.

... is also sound.

My uncle was fond of saying:

Yer a good kid, but who likes goats?

Regarding kids running with things in their mouths, I'm a great one for putting a stop to that and I don't care whose kids they are. I stopped a neighbor kid trotting along with a long-shank phillips-head screwdriver in his mouth on one occasion, and I am unrepentant.

[HDSarah]

From my maternal grandfather:

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream ...

That was my mother's favorite poem, too, except she always quoted the part that goes
Life is real, life is earnest
And the grave is not its goal
Dust thou art to dust returnest
Was not spoken of the soul

My mother is quite the joker. She delivered her warnings in a joking manner, too -- we knew she was joking, but also knew that she meant ''you are dangerously close to the line now and need to back off NOW.'' When it was just family around, she'd say ''Oh, go play in the traffic.'' When there was company there she'd just say "Why don't you go play on the DECK now.'' That was a veiled, joking threat because our house was designed to have a deck on the second floor off of the dining room, but no deck had been built. So, there was a visible doorway there but if you could have opened it (which you couldn't), you'd have stepped into the air, 10 feet above the ground.

Other things I remember:

Instead of saying ''excuse me'' after burping, my mom said (so fast that you could hardly understand the words)
Better to burp the belch and bear the shame
Than squelch the belch and bear the pain.

About anything I didn't really want to do, but had to be done:
It's character building.

And, when I was a teenager:
You're gonna flunk attitude, child.

Also when I was teenager:
If you don't want to go, tell them your mother won't let you.
That only happened a couple times, but I remember it and think that was great parenting. She sensed I was hesitant about going to some social thing but I didn't have the guts to outright tell my friends no. She didn't pry into my reasons, but backed me up and was willing to be my excuse.

And the one thing I remember my dad saying, over and over:
I love you.

I'm lucky to have the family I was born into, and the one I've formed by marriage and childbirth. We're far from perfect, but there's a lot of love.

Sarah

[suejnnhe]

This is a great thread!

From my Dad,:whenever we said, "Hey!"
"Straw is cheaper, grass is free, save your money and spend it on me!"

And in response to the question, "You know what?":
"No, but I know his little sister, Which!"

And from Mom, when she was tired of having us under-foot:
"Downstairs or outside!"

A few months ago I had my first opportunity to use that phrase myself!