Statistically speaking, remarkably few people get their eyes poked out. Likewise, it isn’t common to see people running with scissors or sticking beans in their ears.
Inanimate objects, now lost, certainly didn’t just get up and walk away, now did they? Nor do chores get done all by themselves.
Some children would forget their heads if they weren’t “screwed on,” and should anyone get their bare feet cut off by the lawn mower because they weren’t wearing shoes, well, they certainly wouldn’t go running to their mothers. Or so they’ve been told.
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More likely the injured party would run to their bedroom, which would invariably look “like a cyclone hit it.”
Once there, they wouldn’t try to read in dim light, because that might make them go blind. And they would avoid making googly expressions or crossing their eyes for too long, because their faces might stay that way.
Mealtimes were occasions to ponder the plight of starving children in Africa, who would like nothing better than to eat liver and Brussels sprouts all the day long.
The jury is still out on the question of whether the majority of people involved in accidents are wearing clean underwear at the time.
Nevertheless, a preponderance of other evidence points to this verdict: motherspeak is a successful form of communication.
It’s shorthand for the subtext: be careful; use common sense; be industrious; be smart; be tidy; be healthy; be polite; be grateful; be prepared Ñ and by the way, I love you. Indeed, words to live by.
My favourite motherspeak expression is one I consider to be the most quixotic. Some examples:
Child (in tears): Mom, Tracy chewed the feet off my Barbie doll.
Motherspeak: She’d better not have!
Child (in tears): Mom, I fell down and ripped the knee in my new blue jeans.
Motherspeak: You’d better not have!
Part wishful thinking, part advice, and loaded with implied consequences, this motherspeak response defies any dignified reply. It’s a classic.
This Sunday, when we pay homage to our mothers, I will think about the words my mother spoke to me in childhood Ñ and of all the words she didn’t say, while she instead showed love and care through deed.
It may seem as though this missive pokes fun at the ways and words of mothers. Quite the contrary.
And if anyone reading this still has that mistaken impression, well, you’d better not have.
