Museum of Me: November 2023

Hello and welcome to the Museum of Me. It's the second Friday in November and time for a new installment. This month we ask the important question:  What words or expressions from your childhood still echo in your head? 

There are some months when I have to spend quite a bit of time mulling over the Museum of Me prompt and carefully crafting my answer. This month is not one of those. As soon as I read it, I knew exactly what expression I would write about. 

My mother used some of the standard maternal phrases during my childhood:

• If you keep making that face, it'll freeze that way.
• I'm cold; you should put on a sweater.
• Because I said so, that's why!
• Quiet down, I can't even hear myself think.

I think I've only used those last two on my own kids and I immediately found myself thinking, "Oh, no! I've turned into my mother!" That is not exactly true, but while raising my boys I did gain a better understanding of some of the things my mother had gone through. Along with understanding came more empathy. 

It was my father who used the expression that still echoes in my head: Do as I say, not as I do. I hated to hear it as a child, and I still dislike it even as a 66-year-old woman.

This is my mother and father sometime in the 1960s. (You can tell by my mother's groovy blouse.) If you look at the end table to the right of them, there are two lighters, one cigarette holder, and an ashtray. 

Here's my father on the other end of the sofa. This end table has a lighter, a cigarette holder, and an ashtray. Both my father and mother smoked while I was growing up and it seemed almost normal to me. There were lighters and ashtrays in every room and everyone in the extended family smoked. I don't have any pictures of my parents smoking but here's one of my uncle holding a fish and a cigarette!

Sometime during elementary school, the school nurse made visits to our classrooms and told us how unhealthy smoking was and why we should never start. If our parents smoked, we should tell them how unhealthy and dangerous smoking was and try to convince them to stop. So I did just that. I was young enough that I didn't fully understand and was convinced that my parents would die in just a few days. I remember a conversation at the dinner table where I presented my reasons why they should stop smoking and I even remember crying. My father just said, "Do as I say, not as I do." and that was the end of the conversation. 

I brought up the smoking conversation a few times each year throughout my childhood, and my father's reply was always the same. When I was 16, I told him I was going to start smoking and he still repeated that same tired phrase. It made me angry then and still does. I swore that I would never say that to my own children and I'm kind of proud of the fact that I never have. (I know it's silly to be proud of that, but there I am.)

So how about you? I'd love to hear about what words or expressions you still remember from your childhood. Words spoken when children are young matter, long into old age! We'll be back on the second Friday of December with a brand-new installation. Thank you for visiting The Museum of Me!