Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Dad's Wisdom: Stay Connected to Mom

“Remember your mother sacrificed her life to make sure you had your life.”

Remember when the family’s basic pattern started with breakfast? Mom set breakfast on the table for her children. She smiled as happy faces spooned cereal and grabbed the jelly to spread on their toast.

She’d remind  her “chicks” to come straight home from school. “Don’t talk to strangers,” she’d repeat like she did so many other times. That’s a simple snapshot of morning in America.

Mom’s kitchen moves at a more hustle bustle pace. The family may or may not share the breakfast table at all. It often feels as if every pair of feet in the kitchen hurry in a different direction. Little Johnny has a half eaten piece of toasted bread hanging out of the side of his mouth.

Today, a single family feels busy, complicated, different, cluttered, splintered and disconnected.

That picture is more than one home. It reflects an entire neighborhood, a community and an entire “State” of families clustered together but are not together.

Mom is actually the family leader who establishes a “map” to safety and happiness. The map builds roads to family traditions and values.

More importantly, mom’s map confirms her directions to beliefs and loyalties that keep her children “connected” and on the same happy highway.

When that connection is broken, it’s outside influencers who have their own dark motives to persuade the lost and vulnerable to betray mom’s teachings. They also campaign with sugar and sweet talk to woo weak or the self-absorbed to abandon the family that mom built.

It’s a dead-end roadblock that destroys the “map” to happiness that mom built for her family.

You see, moms are born with a maternal instinct to love and protect her children before she gives a thought to her own life.

The “map” mom creates day after day to achieve her God-given, natural-born instinct to give her children the best life possible, drives every breath she takes.

When children grow into adults, the “map” is theirs to follow and teach to their own children. Why deviate from the “map” mom created when it worked well to provide her children with a happy life?

Most wouldn’t dream of it. Some choose to travel a different direction than follow the “map” that mom created when she raised him or her.

If by chance a wayward child recognizes the breakage; and the error of his or her choice to reject mom and her teachings, there’s hope:

When one errant child returns to the family that mom built, it won’t take long for hundreds and millions of broken families to unite again.

Do you remember the life “mom” gave you? Do you follow the “map” mom built to raise you to be the adult you are? Do you honor your mother and everything she taught you?

Listen to your heart. Life is short. Let’s all honor the family that mom built. Love each other.

That’s the short version of what my dad taught me through his actions and his words.

I hope Dad’s Wisdom helps you, like it helps me.

You would have liked my dad. He would have made you feel as though you were the most important person he's ever met.

I know he would have liked you. Have a wonderful day. Give someone your smile today.