Happy Mother’s Day!  I’m Susan from Organized 31.  I was so excited when Jenny asked me to share my thoughts on what my mother has taught me about being a mother. 

 

I’m a wife to my wonderful active duty Air Force hubby, mother to 3 beloved and wonderful children, a parent educator with over 20 years experience teaching child development and parent education, and most importantly today, I’m the daughter of my wonderful mother.

 

I am who I am because of my mother.   I am the mother I am because of my mother.  She has taught me so many invaluable lessons by being the person she is and the mother she is. Can you tell that I admire my mom?

 

 

The first lesson my mom taught me is compassion.  Your child needs and wants you to love, comfort and understand them.  When they’re little, they need you to kiss their boo-boos all better.  When they’re older they need you to listen to tween and teen drama.  Your children need you to be on their side.  That doesn’t mean that you blindly support their actions, but it does mean that you always support them.  My mom always told me,”There’s nothing you can ever do to make me stop loving you.  I may not like some of the things you say or do, but I will always love you no matter what.”  To this day, when I have a physical or emotional boo-boo, it’s my mom that I want to run to first.

 

My mom taught me to be resilient and tenacious.  My mom’s grandparents were dirt farmers (her description) in Oklahoma.  They didn’t have much at all.  My mom’s parents made sure that she went to college, which was unusual in that day for a girl from her background.  My mom has fought battles in her life that would break a lesser person.  She has fought through those battles with bull-headedness tenacity, resilience, grace and an incredibly positive attitude.  From my mother’s example, I’ve learned to have determination and never give up.  Tenacity and determination are traits all parents need to parent successfully and traits I want to pass onto my children.  The world is an unpredictable place and our children need to learn to be resilient.

 

 

 

 My mom has a love of learning that was passed to her from her father.  My mother’s family placed a very high value on education.  My great-grandmother graduated from 8th grade.  She worked incredibly hard on the farm to make sure her 7 children all graduated from high school.  My grandfather worked incredibly hard to send my mother and uncle to college to receive the education he had wanted for himself but was denied because the family couldn’t afford it.  My mother and father worked incredibly hard to give my brother and I an unparalleled education.  Whenever my mother talks to my children she always asks, “What did you learn today?”   I love that she continues to want to learn new ideas and is interested in what my children are learning.  It’s the love of learning that she passed on to me that led me to start my blog, Organized 31, just because I didn’t know much about “technology” and wanted to learn.  As a parent, we are always in the process of  learning.  Just as we figure out the stage our child is at and how to best deal with that stage, out child grows into a new stage.  Parents must always be learning about their children and about being a parent.

 

I could tie up your entire day telling you about all that I’ve learned from mom.  I treasure all the life lessons she’s taught me and let me just say, thank you, Mom.  I love you.