The Things Our Mothers Said

I do not know how modern day mothers discipline and warn their children in this age, but mothers of the old time days used their tongues to lift up, cut down, or give their sons and daughters some well needed direction. Quite often their tongues lashed while their hands blazed. Those were the days when mothers waited for children to come home. They had no watches to glance at the time. They simply sensed that the boy was not at home from his school;which was always so close to the house we lived in that we could hear the school bell and the noises of recess. They knew when "that boy" should have been home, and if he was not there, they are leaving home to march down (it was usually down) to the school to investigate why. The thing was- the entire neighbourhood knew that Debra or Carl should have been home since three o' clock, because the mother did not just march down to the school; before she left her home the entire village  had to know where she was going and why. Her little girl or boy had not come home when she or he should have been home "already". The neighbours also saw the mother tramping through the edges of the road-side bush, looking for some kind of twig that "bang" hard. When the little boy or little girl, who had completely lost track of time while playing, heard her or his playmates say "you mudder ah come" usually in a whisper of anticipated terror, the child of the mother might try to dodge and run. But run where? Straight home. Behind him the mother is shouting at the top of her lungs, "whay you running goin'? You must come home! Night run till day catch um. Fowl what sleep ah roos' nuh hard to catch!" At school they taught children songs so they can learn lessons. The times table was a song. Numeracy was taught in song; but mothers back then did not need any song for those sayings to be so implanted in out brains that they are persistently replaying themselves in the minds of children of that era up to this very day.
My mother often said, "All kin teet noh laugh!" Sometimes I wish I could remember what I was doing every time she said it. Added to that, she used to say, "Go up by de berrung-grung. . . . see if dem people up dere that kinning dhay teet and see if  is laugh dem ah laugh! She probably said it because she thought I laughed too much, but I mostly think it was because, in my boyish way, and being certain of her all encompassing love for me, I probably laughed at her efforts to be stern.
 I do not know what memories you may have of things your mother said, but I take the time to say happy mothers day to all the mothers who still use your tongues and your example to guide your children along the path of right.
Happy Mothers day.