THINGS WE TEACH OUR KIDS

In the South, we are known for a lot of saying that we tell our kids. "Were you raised in a barn?"  "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"  "If you break your leg, don't come running to me!"  And the list goes on and on.  But what I find fascinating are the unique things that parents say to or teach their kids.

Of course, we all like to hear stories about ourselves.  My father said that every time the TV show "Lassie" would go off each week that I would cry.  He would reassure me that "Lassie" would be back next week.  My father, who most likely had some Cajun blood, truly loved Cajun people - heck, he loved people.  He really enjoyed telling stories about the way Cajuns would say things.  Instead of saying, "I am going to let me horse, that is currently inside the barn, go outside," my Daddy said that the Cajun version was, "I'm gonna turn my horse inside out."  

My mother also told me stories about things she had told me when I was little.  She said that I witnessed a lizard eating a fly and I started crying hysterically.  My mother, thinking quickly, told me that the fly was a cookie bug, so it was okay.  Logical or not, it worked.  In the evenings when we would hear the crickets all chirping together loudly, she told me that it was one cricket's birthday and the rest were singing to him.  That was the basis of a children's story I wrote (that remains unpublished).

My mother's stories continued when my children came along. When she would fry eggs, she would take the egg shells and through them in the garden, to put calcium back into the soil.  My son asked her why she did that.  Again, always thinking, my mother told him that's where eggplants come from!  He's 23 now and I THINK he knows the truth now!

Of course, it continued with me.  Tyler would see squirrels and was interested in them.  I told him not to get too close because squirrel would run up your pants leg.  He left the squirrels alone.  And I do not think that he has an irrational fear of squirrels.  No harm, no foul.

Years ago, Steve Martin had a comedy bit where he talked about wanting to have a child just so he could teach him the wrong words for everything.  "I've got a great trick to play on a three year old kid. Whenever you're around them, talk wrong. So, now it's like his first day of school and he says to the teacher, 'Mambo dogface to the banana patch?'"  Funny concept.  Now, I never did that!  I have always been a stickler for grammar.  But my Southern roots do break through from time to time.  I remember once when Tyler came home after using the word "reckon" in a sentence, such as, "I reckon I'll go with you."  His teacher told him that wasn't proper English.  He told her, "My mother says it!"  Guilty.  I also say, "Fixin' to."  No shame in my game.