The Meanest Mother
Written By Bobbie Pingaro
Used With Permission
I Had The Meanest Mother In The Whole Wide World
While Others Had Cokes And Candy For BreakFast
I Had To Have Cereal, Eggs Or Toast
When Other Kids Had Cokes And Chips For Lunch
I Had To Eat A Sandwich
And You Can Guess
My Supper Was Different Than The Other Kids' Also
But At Least I Wasn't Alone In My Sufferings
My Sister And Two Brothers Had The Same Mean Mother As I Did
My Mother Insisted Upon Knowing Where We Were At All Times
You'd Think That We Were On A Chain Gang
She Had To Know Who Our Friends Were And Where We Were Going
She Insisted If We Said We'd Be Gone An Hour
That We Be Gone One Hour Or Less
Not One Hour And One Minute
I Am Nearly Ashamed To Admit It
But She Actually Struck Us
Not Once
But Each Time We Had A Mind Of Our Own And Did As We Pleased
That Poor Belt Was Used More On Our Seats Than It Was
To Hold Up Daddy's Pants
Can You Image Someone Actually Hitting A Child Just Because He Disobeyed?
Now You Can Begin To See How Mean She Really Was
We Had To Wear Clean Clothes And Take A Bath
The Other Kids Always Wore Their Clothes For Days
We Reached The Height Of Insults Because She Made Our Clothes Herself
Just to save money
Why
Oh Why
Did We Have To Have A Mother Who Made Us Feel Different From Our Friends?
"The Worst Is Yet To Come"
We Had To Be In Bed By Nine Each Night And Up At Eight The Next Morning
We Couldn't Sleep Till Noon Like Our Friends
So While They Slept
My Mother Actually Had The Nerve To Break The Child-Labor Law
We Had To Wash Dishes, Make Beds, Learn To Cook And All Sorts Of Cruel Things
I Believe She Laid Awake At Night Thinking Of Mean Things To Do To Us
She Always Insisted Upon Us Telling The Truth
The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
Even If It Killed Us And It Nearly Did
By The Time We Were TeenAgers
She Was Much Wiser And Our Life Became Even More Unbearable
None Of This Tooting The Horn Of A Car For Us To Come Running
She Embarrassed Us To No End
By Making Our Dates And Friends Come To The Door To Get Us
If I Spent The Night With A GirlFriend
Can You Imagine She Checked On Me To See If I Was Really There!!
I Never Had The Chance To Elope To Mexico
That Is If I'd Had A BoyFriend To Elope With
I Forgot To Mention
While My Friends Were Dating At The Mature Age Of 12 And 13
My Old-Fashioned Mother Refused To Let Me Date Until The Age Of 15 And 16
Fifteen, That Is, If You Dated Only To Go To A School Function
And That Was Maybe Twice A Year
Through The Years, Things Didn't Improve A Bit
We Could Not Lie In Bed "Sick", Like Our Friends Did And Miss School
If Our Friends Had A Toe Ache
A Hang Nail Or Serious Ailment
They Could Stay Home From School
Our Marks In School Had To Be Up To Par
Our Friends' Report Cards Had Beautiful Colors On Them
Black For Passing
Red For Failing
My Mother, Being As Different As She Was
Would Settle For Nothing Less Than Ugly Black Marks
As The Years Rolled By
First One And The Other Of Us Was Put To Shame
We Were Graduated From High School With Our Mother Behind Us
Talking, Hitting And Demanding Respect
None Of Us Was Allowed The Pleasure Of Being A Drop-Out
My Mother Was A Complete Failure As A Mother
Out Of Four Children, A Couple Of Us Attained Some Higher Education
None Of Us Have Ever Been Arrested, Divorced Or Beaten His Mate
Each Of My Brothers Served His Time In The Service Of This Country
And Whom Do We Have To Blame For The Terrible Way We Turned Out?
You're Right, Our Mean Mother
Look At The Things We Missed
We Never Got To March In A Protest Parade
Nor To Take Part In A Riot
Burn Draft Cards
And A Million And One Other Things That Our Friends Did
She Forced Us To Grow Up Into God-Fearing, Educated, Honest Adults
Using This As A Background
I Am Trying To Raise My Three Children
I Stand A Little Taller And I Am Filled With Pride When My Children Call Me "Mean"
Because
You See
I Thank God He Gave Me The Meanest Mother In The Whole World
CopyRight © 1967-
Used With Permission Of
Bobbie Pingaro
COPYRIGHT © 2000-
RASKY'S VIETNAM MEMORIAL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED