Gifts From My Mother: Four Powerful Parenting Principles

My mother taught me many things by word and example. She has always been “in front of me,” leaving a path for me to follow in many areas of life. Here are four parenting principles I learned from her.

Mama was born in December 1919. She was the third child born to her parents. Life was hard for the families in southeastern Oklahoma in those days. Life grew even harder for this young family just a few years later when, after the birth of four more children, pneumonia took the life of her mother—my grandmother—leaving seven children whose ages ranged from 11 months to age 14.

Because of my grandmother’s death, my grandfather’s parents along with three other family members all moved in together. Now there were 13 people to support. My grandfather was the only one who had a job. He worked long hours and was gone from home a great deal just to provide a meager existence.

The stress of life’s hardships during those growing up years without their mother’s love and protection caused harm to my mother and her siblings. The seven children, for the most part, were left to fend for themselves as best they could without their mother and, essentially, their father, since he was gone from home most of the time trying to find any work he could. There did not seem to be much nurturing from their grandparents and family members who lived with the children.

Strength can come from hard times

Hardships in life can build strength in you that perhaps would not be there if life was always easy. Mama yearned for a mother’s love and attention. Because of this void in her life, she had a special tenderness in her heart for children.

My three brothers, my sister and I were blessed to call her “Mama,” but her love didn’t stop with us. I watched time after time, until the end of her life, as her blue eyes would sparkle and a smile would form anytime she saw children. She would make eye contact if she could and almost always children were drawn to her. Hugs would follow shortly if she had her way.

But, lest you think I spent all my days engulfed in my mother’s arms with her smile beaming down on me, I must hasten to tell you that she was really skilled at knowing when and how to use “tough” love.

“What was your part in it?”

Mama loved us fiercely. I always knew she would give up her life for us if need be, but her love did not overlook sin or bad behavior in us. She had a strong sense of right and wrong and worked to instill the same sense of right and wrong in us.

One gift I treasure today in ways that I didn’t when I was growing up was the question Mom always asked when I got into trouble at school or with my friends. As I tearfully told her my sad story, full of self-defense, she would look me in the eyes and say, “What was your part in it?”

To this day, when I get at cross-purposes with other people and am wallowing in my full self-defensive mode, out pops my conscience with my mother’s voice saying, “What is your part in it, Andrea?”

Through my mother’s training, God can catch my attention and through His Holy Spirit direct me to look inward and upward in a way that I couldn’t as a child. I want to see “my part” in the broken relationship and try the best I can to repair and restore it.

So, the next time your children come to you with a story of woe, ask, “What is your part in it?” They won’t like it right now, but it is a great tool of self-governance to give them. It lasts a lifetime.

Do your chores—even in the dark

We were a farm family with very little income. Each of us, our parents and all five children, had to work together to provide the food we ate. Our milk came from the cows we milked; our eggs came from the chickens we fed and tended; our vegetables came from the gardens we planted and then preserved in jars, etc. The scripture in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat,” was fully understood in our home.

One of my jobs from early childhood was to take the dried ears of corn we raised, shell the corn off the cob, run it through a grinder and feed the chickens. It was also my job each day to gather the eggs from nests in two barns. For some reason, I failed to gather the eggs before dark one day.

My parents could have taken into account my great fear of the dark, not to mention the added fear that chicken snakes sometimes got in the hen’s nests. But they did not excuse me from my chores, so off I marched, crying buckets, into the dark to gather the eggs. I still remember the fear I had with great clarity, but never again did I forget to gather the eggs before dark! To this day, I feel a great responsibility to make sure I fulfill the jobs I am given.

I firmly believe all children need chores even if you don’t live on a farm. Find chores for your children, but remember it will do them no good to just give chores. Love them enough to see that they do them—even in the dark.

Remember to make time for some fun

Mom worked very hard from sunup to sundown, but she remembered the days of her youth and somehow found time to stop from her constant labors to bring fun into our lives.

I have a wonderful memory of when my cousin, Robert, and I were 5 years old. Our mothers were canning vegetables. We had gotten a box of oatmeal that week with a gingerbread cookie cutter in it. My cousin and I kept begging our mothers to make us a gingerbread man. Mom promised when they finished she would, and in a little while she did.

Just before the cookie was done, she placed my cousin on one side of the front door and me on the other. We both knew the story of the gingerbread man who ran away. Mom told us that when she opened the oven door the gingerbread man would try to run away, and we would have to catch him before he got out of the house.

Unbeknown to us, Mom had cut out a cardboard gingerbread man, tied it to a long string and attached it to the broom. We heard the oven door open and we got ready!

All of a sudden here Mom came running through the house, swinging the broom up and down in front of her with our gingerbread man dancing in front of the broom. Robert and I froze as we watched with big eyes as the gingerbread man and Mom disappeared out into the yard. We searched all over the yard and finally came back into the kitchen to sadly tell our mothers that the gingerbread man had gotten away. Imagine our delight to see him lying on the cookie sheet waiting for us!

Mom was like that! I used to tell people that my girlfriends came home with me so they could play with my mother. Don’t get me wrong—she worked long and hard, but she remembered to give us the gift of fun along with teaching us how to work.

In our present world of electronic babysitters, don’t rob your children of you! In the future wouldn’t you like to hear your child telling someone about the time you made them “a gingerbread man that almost got away” or some such thing? It will be fun. Try it.

Andrea West lives in Arkansas. Her husband, Roger, pastors three congregations in western Arkansas. They have enjoyed their years of serving and sharing their lives with the brethren in many areas since 1965. They are thankful for their wonderful family, which includes their five grandchildren.

For more by Andrea West, see:

• Spiritual Insights via Play-Doh