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My mom taught me how to be tough

May 9, 2014
My mom taught me how to be tough. Not tough in the way we usually think of the word “tough,” you know what I mean, bleeding from the head, walk it off, fistfight on the school bus, that sort of thing. (My mom’s like 5’ 3” and only weighs a buck and change maybe, though I did once witness her take a...
Alex Tse's picture

My mom taught me these life lessons

May 9, 2014
My mom taught me these life lessons…
Christy Turlington's picture

My mom taught me to love words

May 9, 2014
My mom taught me to love words. We were poor when I was a kid, so we never had the latest toys.
Alisa Valdes's picture

My Mom never, ever gives up.

May 9, 2014
My Mom never, ever gives up. In her gentle and cheerful way, she never gives up. Mom is 92 years old, she's had health and other challenges galore, and she never gives up. She is grounded in her faith in God. That faith has empowered her to face one obstacle after another with patience and grace...
Enola Aird's picture

My mom taught me the ritual of the family dinner

May 9, 2014
My mom taught me the ritual of family dinner. Monday through Friday we sat down together as a family to eat and talk about our day. Dad came home, siblings in from riding our bikes, hands washed, table set, everyone at the table until dessert was over and the kitchen cleaned. Then you were excused...
Laurie David's picture

Jumping In The Deep End

May 9, 2014
Jae, Meema, Love, Boid, Aunt Jae, Puzzle, Jane, Grandma Jae, and Mom. All of these names were used for one woman—a woman who loved to live life fully, to skinny dip in mountain lakes, to explore balsam wooded paths, vivid art, and ideas. Gauguin, Picasso, Cezanne, the free Smithsonian museums were...
Kristin's picture

My mother taught me to love books

May 9, 2014
My mother, Ricki Waldman, taught me to love books. In my house we were not athletes, we did not have hobbies. We read. Voraciously. Constantly. We even had periodic "reading suppers," in which we would all sit silently around the dinner table, each immersed in our own book, paying scant attention...
Ayelet Waldman's picture

#ReachHigher: One of the Greatest Lessons I Learned From My Mom

May 9, 2014
One of the greatest lessons I learned from my mom was about the importance of education.
Michelle Obama's picture

My Mother

May 9, 2014
My mother didn’t teach me just one thing. She taught me too many things to count, things which I can’t even articulate, things that wouldn’t make sense to anyone who isn’t me or my mother. But that is the beautiful thing about our mother-daughter relationship. I value this relationship more than...
Monica Weeks's picture

A little lipstick and independence

May 9, 2014
My mother taught me so many things, it’s hard to choose which to write about. What always stands out for me was her fierce independence as a young woman. She told me she could do anything as well as the boys when she was a kid and she proved it to them often. She ran away from an abusive father to...
Mary McDonough's picture

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