Mother’s Day: A Mother’s Top Ten Commandments

If you lose it, you lose it. Don’t lose control. If you do, then your kids will lose control and a bad situation only gets worse.
Happy mother, happy children. Your children are your mirrors. If you’re judgmental, critical, and unhappy, your children will be, too.
Respect children’s dignity. Never reprimand them in front of other people. Never hit them. Hurt children hurt children. Actually, hurt children go on to hurt everybody, including themselves.
Never tell them that they are bad. There’s no such thing as a bad boy or a bad girl. They might do wrong but they are never inherently bad.
Let them understand that they can feel sorry for what they did but not for who they are. You want them to have a healthy sense of self, not shame.
Love your children without strings attached. They will one day leave you. They might never thank you for all you did for them. Taking care of them is the highest form of love there is. So do it without expectations. Remember the equation: no expectations = great happiness.
Don’t focus on your spouse or partner’s relationship to your children. Flowers need sun and rain. If someone in you and your kids’ life is acting like rain, just be a stronger sun.
Don’t react, respond. Let there be a moment’s breath between your first thoughts and your words.
Remember to tell your kids that you love them each day.
Remember to tell your very own self that you love you. Mother your children and mother yourself. Know that you are doing the best you can. You are!

Thus spoke the Mom Who Took off on her motorcycle. And finally, as my own mother always says, “Mother is not the first part of a hyphenated curse word!” Thanks, Mom! You taught me vision. That means not to see the world as it should be but the way things are. Reminder: MOM is WOW spelled upside down.

The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle Flash Sale: $8.99 here:

http://www.amazon.com/Mom-Who-Took-Off-Motorcycle/dp/0985343206/ref=la_B001KI5ARY_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368340186&sr=1-1

We All Mother Something (thewisdomshop.wordpress.com)

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.

View all posts by dianabletter →

1 Response to Mother’s Day: A Mother’s Top Ten Commandments

Marylin Warner says:

May 14, 2013 at 1:52 pm

“A Mother’s Top Ten Commandments” should be presented on greeting cards for Mother’s Day and on New Mother cards, and needlepointed on pillows.
Excellent post, Diana.