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My mother loves me too much to . . .

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

Rather than rebel against discipline, a teenager proudly tells his classmates that his mother loves him too much to let him conform to their standards.

How Strict Is too Strict?

Do your children tell you that you are too strict, that no other mother is as demanding as you are? I heard the story almost daily. It was usually preceded by the statement, "Everyone else in my class is allowed to do that." I had a standard answer to that comment, "Well, you are not everyone else's son." That seemed to end every argument, even though it would probably come up again in a couple of days.

A Mother and a Teacher

While spending several years doing graduate studies, I substitute taught now and then, helping out in my field of expertise, languages. At one time, I spent two weeks in the private school which my son, Arno, had attended during the three previous years. As a matter of fact, I replaced the homeroom teacher of the grade X class in which Arno would have been if he had not gone back to public school. It was with some trepidation that I came to that school. Every pupil in the class knew me. I had met them all whenever I picked Arno up from the parties in the basements of the posh homes of their parents. They all knew me as the parent who never allowed her son to stay till the end of a party, as the parent who threatened to crash every party unless Arno was upstairs at the count of 10.

The Acid Test

How were those pupils going to react to me? Were they going to rebel? None of them had parents who were as demanding as I was. Were they going to let me know that I was not going to tell them what to do? To my total surprise, the class took to me with an apparent display of respect coupled with affection. Not once in our two weeks together did I have to admonish anyone. Not once did I have to ask anyone to clean up the room or to keep down the noise. There was no noise. I was baffled. That is not the way a normal grade X class behaves. On my last day at that school, I simply had to find out what was going on in the minds of those pupils. So I asked and they told me, and they all agreed. Yes, they all respected me. No, none of them were afraid of me. They did, in fact, all love me. Arno had stood out in that class as the boy who was not allowed to do what everyone else had been allowed to do, and everyone was jealous of the guidelines which he followed. How had he convinced them of the advantage of his position? Simple. Whenever something came up which he knew he was not allowed to do, he would announce,
"My mother loves me too much to let me do that."
And that settled it. That was a great Mother's Day present and a most rewarding experience for me as a teacher.

Other Articles about Education

My Mother, the Greatest Inspiration of My Life
For Mother's Day 1999, my tribute to my mother. She was my friend, my teacher, and my example who shaped my life.
Suite101 Turned My Nightmare into a Dream.
When my life's dream of teaching was shattered by a traumatic car accident, I found a new cyber-classroom at Suite101 and new cyber-friends all over the internet.
Let's take back our schools.
School shootings in the US and Canada have evoked different solutions from the community. A Canadian town champions a positive solution of forgiveness, prayer, and faith.