Five things I wish my mother hadn’t told me

I wish my mother hadn’t told me to “run along now and be a good girl” because that always meant I was about to be the topic of conversation, and that was never good.

I wish my mother hadn’t said that being stoical was always a good quality. I discovered that being too stoical did me no end of harm mentally and physically. Looking back I tolerated unjust employers, discovered that there was a price to pay for being amenable and anxious to please, and very memorably on Christmas Eve, (the first year we were married), I refused to create a scene by calling 999 though I was doubled up in excruciating pain on my bedroom floor… with what turned out to be acute appenditicis!

I wish my mother hadn’t said “Manners Maketh Man” with such frequency and especially in front of prospective boyfriends she disapproved of!

More incomprehensively, when my first pregnancy ended so late and traumatically, I wish my mother hadn’t said “I wish you hadn’t told so many people you were pregnant, because it was so difficult for us to have to tell everyone”! Surely an unforgiveable stab in an already broken heart.

I wish my mother hadn’t told me that you can always judge a person by the way they dress! It simply wasn’t true. We were driving through town one day when my mother noticed a bearded, rather dishevelled middle aged man at a bus stop, and proclaimed, “Good heavens, look at him”, at which point, my older brother, a local university student, glanced out of the window and said, “Oh, that’s my Professor and Head of Department!”