Just Trying to Help
You ever notice whenever your mother messes something up in your life it's always because she was just trying to help?
"Mother, I told you --- don't do our laundry when you visit. You shrunk my brand new shirt."
"I was just trying to help."
You want to tell her to stop helping, but there are times when you actually do need her help, like babysitting for date night. So you have to allow her to ruin various things around the house, so you can continue to date your spouse.
My mother-in-law is very, very helpful, too. Put it this way, if you had a spinal injury --- she would move you.
Mother-in-law: "You remember when you had a broken back and I moved you thus severing your spinal cord and ruining your chances of ever walking again? Well, I was just trying to help."
Another way that our mothers help is by reminding us to wear a jacket outside. Somehow as grownups with children of our own, this concept continues to escape us. We would probably be walking around naked if not for our mother's reminders.
"You need to eat something."
What is this thing called food, you speak of, mother?
To this day, when I visit my mother, she'll brag, "I made your favorite, chicken casserole covered with broken potato chips."
"Mother, I don't like chicken casserole."
"Since when?"
"Mom, I've never liked chicken casserole. I tell you that every time I visit. Remember me? Your son?"
Mothers seem to be in denial about what their children like and dislike. My mother can never remember my favorite food from my least favorite foods.
This is the one my wife hates the most. When we come home from date night and her mom goes, "I went ahead and did your laundry." She might as well come out and say, "because you're not doing it right." Whether it's meant this way or not doesn't matter. What matters is how my wife interprets it and how her interpretation affects my evening.
Please, if you're someone's mother, stop helping your grown children. Somehow, believe it or not, we will survive. Sure, all our clothes will be a faded reddish-pink hue, but that doesn't matter because we usually forget to wear them anyway.
Our mothers always want to help, but rarely ask for help. When they do ask for help it's some sort of bizarre request that only comes from people over sixty. You ever have a parent say something like this, "If I ever get that old --- just shoot me?" This was my mother's request.
Then, one day my mother-in-law said, "If I ever get that feeble just smother me with a pillow."
Everyone in my life over sixty wants me to kill 'em. Like I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in prison because they have a fear of bedpans. Yeah, there's a position I want to get caught in --- holding a pillow over my mother-in-law's head when someone walks in.
"What are you doing?"
"I was just trying to help."
Scripture Verse
"Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you." Deuteronomy 5:16 NIV
Thor Ramsey is the host of the T.V. comedy show, Bananas. Watch it free online!
Originally published August 19, 2004.
