The Oddest Moments

Here's a strange one. Mom always had a way of bringing up important teaching points at the oddest moments. I find that her method of parenting was a bit sporadic - I guess in a good way. It's like she didn't have a lesson plan prepared and would remember things at the oddest times.

I recall (but could be corrected if I'm imagining it) that we were on a vacation where we were visiting a historical park. Maybe it was Williamsburg, VA? Not sure. Anyway, we all had to use the bathrooms. We all went, and gathered back in front of the town hall or something. We're walking along the path and Mom stops us to make sure we knew that when using the bathroom we should sit on our hands instead of sitting directly on a public toilet seat. I remember secretly being horrified that I didn't know that and that she had told us this as if this was a very important lesson. If this was so important, why had she never mentioned it to us before? I remember being totally embarrassed that we were discussing this in a public place on a walking path in the middle of this historic place. I think on the outside we just gave our normal "whatever" response and tried to change the subject.

This story kept popping back into my head recently. I'm not sure why. Told you it was odd. But I think it's a pattern. It's the way she did a lot of parenting. I often look at what I'm doing as a parent and wonder whether I'm just making it all up as I go along. Do I need to do some more lesson planning? I tend to dwell on things and over analyze. Again, that did not always seem to be Mom's way when it came to parenting. She had so much going on all the time that I think these things just hit her and she thought she better get this communicated now before we go forward.