Chai wrote:Well, BOTH my parents loved me, they would always yell endearments like "Would you Goddamn kids shut up!"
Another good one was "I don't want to talk about it."
Chai, I have a feeling you were probably pretty "active" as a kid. I kind of picture you as a talker.
Goddamn-- now that's a word most used by parents in the 60s.
dyslexia wrote:"if you don't stop that I'm gonna sell you to the gypsies"
I can't tell if you're serious or not-- but the funny part is their wanting to
sell you to the gypsies, not
give you to the gypsies.
Why not turn a profit after your rotten ungrateful kids kids have put you through such misery?
Setanta wrote:Hah ! ! !
My grandmother used to say that, except she always referred to "the travelin' gypsies" (which is an Irish thing).
Yeah, but did she want to give or sell you to them?
Gargamel wrote:Naw, I have great parents. Let's see...
"Don't get fresh," my Mom used to say. That became hilarious as rap began to boom in the 80s and hip hop culture adopted that word to mean "cool."
Also, and you'd never know it by my track record on this site, but I was frequently warned against, "bathroom language."
"Don't get fresh", now there's a memory.
Don't get fresh, eat your vegetables.
"Bathroom language" sounds so very civilized.
mac11 wrote:
From my mom: The response to "I'm coming" was always "So is Christmas." (She's Jewish, so that's quite a puzzlement.)
The response to complaints about the food being too hot to eat was always "I can't cook food cold."
"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."
"Just wait until I tell your father." That worked well because disappointing Dad was terrifying. He wouldn't make much fuss, but his sad face worked better than all Mom's yelling.
There was much warning about washing out mouths with soap, but it never happened that I recall.
From Dad:
"You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die."
His response to "What are you doing?" was typically "Baking a cake" even when he was doing something in the garden or fixing the toaster or whatever...
I don't remember being told about starving children, but we were required to clean our plates. That reminds me of another one: "You don't have to like it, you just have to eat it."
I like these-- especially the contradictory ones-- I imagine a small person kind of puzzling over their remarks; Jewish mother and her Christmas comment and your father's cake baking snotty remark. It seems like your parents were no frills and got right to the point.
"I can't cook food cold" doesn't leave much room for the person who's burnt their tongue.
Roberta wrote:More about food:
I was accused of "eating like a boid" (exactly as spoken by my mother and grandmother), "being a picky eater," and being "all skin and bones."
"Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses," had me walking around without my glasses. There were a few years (when I started dating) that the world was nothing but a blur.
"Education isn't everything." Life experience counted for a lot with my parents--neither of them graduated from high school.
My father used to refer to birds as the "boids" as well, he was from NYC. When he remarried, his wife was not from NYC and she could not for the life of her say boids the way we could (we kids could say it through the gene pool).
I was told I ate like a bird. That same person thought about it for a minute and then said, "but wait a minute, birds eat a lot, they're eating all the time."
I believe it that you didn't wear your glasses-- what was this the 50s, 60s (forgive me if I'm predating you)? So much more pressure back then to conform.
And, once upon a time, you really could do well without an education.
boomerang wrote:Yeah, for real.
And then my dad would say "Honey. You are way to pretty for Ringo Starr."
And my mom would laugh.
And we'd all be so relieved that she was going to stay with us that we would behave.
And yes, we even knew who the Beatles were and never had visions of what our life would be like to have a billionaire rock star for a step-dad, only visions of how sad we'd be without mom.
What a sweet story. This makes me happy.
Joe Nation wrote:The dad of my best friend, Annie, had another take on keeping kids in line. Annie had three brothers and two sisters and if they were carrying on in the car or wherever, Annie's dad would say:
"Now, if you don't settle down we're going to have to leave you like we did your brother."
"What?" The kids would say."What brother!?"
"You kids don't remember him, but you used to have another brother and he wouldn't behave like he was supposed to, soooo, one day we just left him on the roadway."
"Oh, not that's not true."
"Yes. It is. And I would hate to have to drive off and leave one of you behind."
"Yeah?? What was this kid's name???
Annie's dad wouldn't pause a second.
"Sharky. He was a little blond boy"
There would be dead silence.
Annie says she remembers hearing this tale several times in her life and that it was always the littlest ones who settled down quickly.
=====
Years go by, and every now and again, one of the kids will send Annie a postcard or a email photo with a note saying :
"Hooray!!! I found our brother!!!"
Joe(You are slower than molasses in January)Nation
Funny. This reminds me of some of the small deceptions my father would pull to keep us in line. When we'd go on a vacation he'd set the clocks ahead by a 1/2 hour so we could be up and out at an hour his early-bird instincts found acceptable. It never really occurred to him to set the clocks ahead when we weren't in front of him.
mushypancakes wrote:"Life's a bitch and then you die." -mum
When my brother and I got fighting and it got physical,
"Ok, who wants the knife? Who wants the axe? If you are going to do something, do it right. "
No food ones, except once we were old enough to get our own plate, we were expected to eat what we took.
I don't remember ever having much of a problem with that, or being scolded when it came to food.
"Built like a brick **** house" , I remember vividly as used to describe a lot of the women in my mom's family.
"Don't stir the ****."
I hate to say this, but a lot of the expressions heard growing up were racist or had racial undertones..
"Black as the ace of spades"
"Lazy as a coon." (and knew this didn't mean a racoon!)
"Gone Paiute" (very specific meaning to this: very drunk, acting wild, looking for trouble, irresponsible and losing a lot of valuables in the process)
"Horny as a Buck" (not the animal, but a native guy, usually young)
One of the most embarrassing to me was how mom would call certain foods by racial made up names. Licorice kids were "nigger babies" , brazil nuts were "nigger toes", on and on.
You a Southerner? Cause we Yankees don't use rhythmic language (racist or not) like this, nor (Yankee pretense!) do we make offerings of weapons to help the fight along.
Noddy24 wrote:Stop chewing a soft banana in my ear (said when a child was hovering over the back of a chair).
You have the light things on your feet (meaning run and fetch).
Do you want me to sell you down the river to the soap fat man?
A friend of mine got on an elevator and heard an irate mother tell her cranky four-year-old, "Shape up or I'm going to tear your arm out of the socket and beat you over the head with the bloody stump."
These are good. Not the typicals ones I ever heard. You a Southerner, too Noddy?
Wow. That's one elaborate threat for a tired four yr. old. Poor thing. Whenever I hear some parent going over the top like that I always have exaggerated vision of the child as a grown-up and in prison.
urs53 wrote:My parents did not approve of the guy I was living with for 15 years. Whenever my mother told me that he was not good for me, she said 'And I am not the only one saying this!'
'Drive slowly, the roads might be icy.' It seems like my mother said that in August, too...
Someone here mentioned gypsies. My brother used to say that I was not his real sister but bought from the gypsies. I thought that was a good thing. They picked me - and they were stuck with him when he was born
You found a creative way to work around your brother's nastiness. Pretty clever.
I read that Bess Truman's mother never thought Harry was good enough for Bess--even after he became president and she moved into the White House with them.
When we kids were driving and my father was in the car he'd always instruct us to "slow up" if he thought we were driving to fast. This prompted a lot of discussion among my siblings and me about how you do that.
dadpad wrote:father in law says: God helps those that help themselves
followed immediatly by: God help those who help themselves.
amazing the difference a letter makes.
When I lived in RI there was a wealthy, wealthy politician who ran for governor's office. The media asked him about his personal wealth and he replied with "God helps those who help themselves."
None of the voters were too pleased with this and he lost by a lot.
