I love my mother a lot, I really do. However, sometimes, like every other parent, she makes mistakes when deciding what is best for her children. She always has her kids best interests at heart, but that isn?t always enough. A perfect example of this is when trying to make me more independent, my mom stopped making me sandwiches. Despite her good intentions my mother?s refusal to make me sandwiches has negatively affected my life.
It wasn?t until my mother cut off my supply of peanut butter and jelly and ham and cheese sandwiches, that I realized the importance of money. She used to give me the choice of making my own school lunch or using my allowance to pay for it. I would spend my entire twenty-dollar allowance on chicken nuggets and french fries. It got to the point that my senior year in high school my girlfriends mom started making my lunches behind my mothers back so I could save my money for college.
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, top slice of b...
English: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made ...
Young Woman Mother with Daughter GirlWhen I was fourteen or fifteen I discovered take out and eventually I stopped asking my mom to make me a snack and I went straight for the phone book. I had a local sub shop on speed dial and they actually sent my house a Christmas card one year. I guess that is a small price to pay when you consider how much money I put into that place.
Another side affect unseen by my mom when she stopped making sandwiches is the hate I developed for making them. I can?t remember the last time I made a sandwich for myself. I am not quite sure the reason for the hate I developed, because I still like to eat them. When I tell people about the situation they feel it is just because I am lazy, but I don?t think that is the case. I am more than willing to make myself eggs and I will make them any time of the day or night. It seems a little odd considering the fact that making eggs takes more time and requires more effort. If we are out of eggs though, and I don?t have any money I will usually not eat instead of making myself anything. Everybody thought I was strange because one of the reasons I was looking forward to college was the food.
The last and probably the most important affect this has had on me is the bitterness I developed towards my mom. Now, I?m not saying I hate her or anything and it?s just a slight bitterness, but still, who wants to be bitter towards their mother? I used to get teased in elementary school when buying school lunch wasn?t the cool thing to do. The other kids used to tell me that my mother didn?t love me and it made me upset to think that their mothers would make them sandwiches and mine wouldn?t. I would go over friend?s houses and their parents would be making sandwiches like there was no tomorrow. If they thought you looked hungry they would make you something, and it made me think about how my life would be different if my mother could just have been like that.
I am not saying my mother hasn?t been good to me in other ways, and as I get older I am better able to understand that she was doing it mostly out of love (I still believe laziness was at least a slight motivation for it). I am working hard though to over come the stigma making a sandwich has developed in my mind. It isn?t going to be a short process and I am sure there will be some setbacks along the way, but it will be worth it. I want this hatred for making sandwiches to stop with me so my children can enjoy all the benefits of homemade lunches and not have to worry about where their next sandwich is going to come from. Only time will tell if I?m successful.
Waiting on the porch on Mother's Day 2007
Mother and Baby portrait
Happy Mother's Day Mom!