It’s easy to be a mother when your kids do something great. It’s harder to be a mother when they do something dumb; though there is a certain amount of sympathy. But it’s really hard to be a mother when your kids do something dumb and you are an enabler.

 

One afternoon when I was four years old, my brother Tom was three, and our neighbor Todd was also four, we ran into the kitchen and asked Mom for a bottle opener. We probably said it like this, “Momcanwehaveabottleopenerplease?” Mom was busy with two younger brothers, so she said “OK.” Kitchen utensils were often used as toys in those days. Pans could be used to make sand castles, spoons could be used as catapults, a magnifying glass could be used as an insecticide and a butter knife could be used (famously) to check for electricity.

 

Perhaps she was, in fact, surprised that we had used the bottle opener to open bottles. She spotted us from the kitchen window in the sunshine, sitting on the hood of Dad’s 1959 Plymouth Sport Fury, drinking beer. We were on our second round.

 

Mom was forced to take our neighbor Todd home to his mother with the story. “How could this have happened?” as Todd’s mom repossessed her beery baby boy and cemented her opinion that the kids were under supervised next door. Mom - “mumble, mumble, and mumble.” It was hard to be a mother that day. It was reported that nap time was warmly embraced and exceptionally long in duration.

 

For Mother’s Day, I hope to be sitting in the sunshine, drinking beer and remembering Mom.

lol aww your poor Mom. I sent my Mom Kansas City bbq this year and her favorite flowers. The bbq woke her up when it was delivered this afternoon but was a big hit she said, as she worked a 16 hr shift yesterday. I'm not the best daughter a lot of other Moms would have disowned me. I adore my Mom   :)