Are you a mother? Have you ever used these same words, and then done a double take, hearing echoes from your childhood? I have. I have a son, he's a teenager now, and through his younger years he was quite the questioner. I'd tell him he had to do something, he'd ask me why. It's a scary thing to open your mouth and hear your own mother speaking. But, thinking about it now, should it have felt scary?
My mother is a fine woman. She's coped with raising three children, working full-time for the most part whilst she did it. She coped with my father's drinking, two wayward teenaged boys. She coped well, as far as I can see. My mother helped my horse trainer father, she did the accounts for him, went along race nights, minding us kids as well as the sometimes fractious race horse.
My older brother went through some turbulent times as a youth, but came through as a fine person and an even finer reinsman and father. My younger brother had some wild times in his youth too, but Mum coped with the policeman knocking on the door holding a bag of marijuana & asking to see my baby brother. My little brother is a respected and wealthy businessman now, with strong family ties.
There were other wild times as my mothers three children moved into adulthood, but we all married, and remained married, we all had children. None of us ended up in jail. Through all of it, my mother would use the old standby, "Because I"m your mother and I say so.'
She wouldn't say it loudly, but she'd say it firmly, and we knew she meant it. When I said it to my son, I aim for the same tone as my mother used, and I'm proud to say my son has retained his questioning, but he's clever enough to search for his own answers now. If the answer is "No" he realises it's for a good reason, and the rest can remain unspoken.
