They all say "Mother knows best", well here are my Mom's greatest hits...
1.) Vocabulary - part of my English vocabulary came from my Mom. I was too lazy to read books and refer to the dictionary back then since they were just too bulky and heavy and most of the time i did not really understand them. So every time i had homework i'd be, "Ma, what's the meaning of this?", "how do you pronounce this?", it was very convenient and she always had answers to everything in terms i would understand. I thought she was the absolute truth in the English language that time and i never really bothered to verify them up to this day, so whenever a native speaker would correct me, i'd say, "nope, nope, your wrong, that's not what my Mother said!".
2.) Public Speaking - if American Idol has a Public Speaking version then i would be that naive kid bursting with potential who always auditioned every season and my Mom would be the one hovering behind me during interviews. She trained me so hard in it as if the apocalypse in the future would be a battle of wits instead of mass destruction and this was her way of preparing me for survival. She would get me into Declamation parts in school programs, Oratorical bouts in our community and even Child Preaching contests at church. I did not memorize common pieces, i did not do "alms, alms give me a piece of bread...", I only did originals, written entirely by her. I memorized them in no time, delivered them convincingly, cried in a snap of a finger and roared if i needed to. I was that annoying little star child in the family who everyone pretended to like but deep inside you wanted to drop kick every time he opened his mouth.
3.) Style - I had worn plaids and paisley shirts before i could even pronounce them. I had rocked a pair of fuchsia and tangerine pants before i could spell them. That's how colorful my childhood was which was very odd for a kid growing up in a small town where nobody gave a damn on such things. I was the blank canvass of my Mom's creativity. She never bought us clothes most of the time since she made them herself. I think she probably dressed me in almost all themes conceivable, from the roaring 20's to the psychedelic 70's, the dapper colonial cool to the futuristic space suit, even as a caveman, she had everything down pat up to the last detail. Every time we went to the big city, she normally would not take us shopping for clothes, instead we went to those big textile shops filled with towering rolls of fabric, she would stay there for what seemed like forever and bought yards and yards of cloth, i would pass out in a corner and by the time i woke up, she's not yet done, she's Project Runway personified.
4.) Travel - I travelled a lot with my Mom back in the day, mostly to visit my grandfather who lived in another city. It was a kind of traveling where convenience was not a part of the journey, not even a destination. Underdeveloped roads paved with nothing but deafening screeching and halts, open-air busses stacked with people in various positions imaginable and a steady ventilation of dust and black smoke or puke if you get lucky, such simple joys of 3rd world travel in the 80's. Despite these circumstances, my Mom navigated through them like a pro especially the terminal scene; no ticket booth, no lounges and no lining up to get to the bus, commuters simply scrambled like rats toward the bus door, some would hang in there even if the bus was still in motion and would not let go until the bus stopped. What Ma usually did was to steer clear from the chaos and looked for an open window, dunked my brother in and instructed him to lie down on the bench and pretend to sleep, by that we were guaranteed a seat before we even got in. No wonder I eased through the backpacking scene without any issues or major adjustments, not even that life-changing eureka moment 1st world travelers usually had when they discovered a totally different world outside their comfort zones.
5.) Waking up Early - whether it is a school day, church day or laundry day there was no extended rest for us weary and sleep deprived, we were on a mandate to wake up early. It was a definite no no to let the sun shine on us in bed or we'd burn like Vampires from my Mom's wrath the moment she stormed inside our room and got us out of bed. She pushed us to lead an active lifestyle, get into sports and explore the outdoors instead of marinating on the couch at home which we usually did. Me and my brother had our first ego-bruising experience every time she would bring up her brothers as an example of a what a young guy should be, big, strong and functional as opposed to us being pale, frail and physically useless.
6.) Organic Food - before the Organic food movement became sensational mom was already on it. She was so devoted that we were placed on a very strict diet at a young age. Local fresh produce, less meat, more fruits and vegetables all sourced from our local farmer's market and by Farmer's Market it's not those hip markets we have in big cities today where produce is sold at ridiculously high prices, it's a market where the produce you buy comes with soil and sweat from the actual farmers selling them. It was a simple twisted time when fresh food was ultra cheap and processed ones were a luxury we can't afford thus they were banned at home; no colored powdered juice drinks, no canned goods, no hotdogs and no sugary snacks, basically all the good stuff. It felt like my birthday party every time i would have a small portion of corned beef or tender juicy hotdog or even a sip of Eight o'clock juice drink. Tonsillitis was very common among my siblings that time as we normally force-fed ourselves with all the sweets we can find before Ma got back home from work.
7.) Literature - most kids were cradled by the warmth of Disney's manufactured happy endings from the bed time stories they heard from their parents. Mine was a bit different, it was more of a cold feeling from the mystery, depression and even the macabre of Silas Marner, The Cask of Amontillado and The Pit and the Pendulum. I don't know why but this was my Mom's usual repertoire every time she tucked me to bed. I wasn't really scared nor traumatized nor did i turn into a cold-blooded psychopath since i never really understood what she was saying at that time and i was normally off to dreamland by the time she started with Shakespeare.
8.) Reading - we did not have local cable TV at home when i was growing up in the 80's since according to Ma, what we got on TV was second hand information, we have to read books instead. We'd be flooded with different kinds of books at home, some interesting, some not, especially the ones without pictures. Even though i showed interest in books early on, i was still itching for TV, i was so enamored with TV shows and TV ads that the first time i sat through a full TV programming at our neighbor's place, i was glued, shows after shows and ads in between, i watched them wide-eyed and speechless despite the blurry black and white reception. I stayed there the whole day and never left until i heard my mom shouting my name in the dead of night from our house next door.
9.) Herbal Medicine - my mom is not a big fan of commercial medicine, for common colds and flu we don't normally go to the pharmacy which was ironic since we got tons of them in our town. The staple medical remedies at home were Eucalyptus tea, Carrot juice, Radish juice, "Kamonggay" juice, "Guyabano" juice, she likes to juice anything, if she could take the juice out of her herbal books, she probably would have done so. She put us on a steam bath as well, not the posh one but the one where we were covered with a blanket while we crouched on top of a huge steaming pot filled with herbs, twigs and roots she gathered from some mystic mountains nearby, we're like a hippie family without the musicality.
10.) Of course these are just a small fraction of the things i learned from her that i would NEVER change. There are way bigger and more important things i can't forget which i don't need to indicate here as they are the obvious reflection of the man i turned out to be today and words are not enough to express how grateful i am to have her as my Mother.
