What my mother told me…
I had an interesting conversation last night with some of my friends that led into what my mother used to tell me. Now, my mother is lovely and quite sensible most of the time, but she also has one major fault: susceptibility. And the main factor in this fault is the Chinese newspaper. Every week when they go to the Chinese supermarket, they pick up the newspaper—after almost 20 years here she’s still most comfortable reading things in her native language—and reads things out to my father and me that just makes us go, “Yeah, right.” My mother likes easy explanations, causal relationships and that sort of thing, and we know from reality that rarely are things directly causal.
Here I’ve collected some of the more vivid ones. Some of them might have scientific backing?
- Eating fish will make you smarter. Yes, I know about this one—but as a child I loathed fish (perhaps I just didn’t like the way my mother cooked it) and could not be persuaded to eat it. I tell my mother now that I turned out all right. She only quips, “but think of how much smarter you could have been!”
- Eating turnips in soup will make you smarter. Still not sure about that one.
- Drinking cold milk in winter will make you ill. Again, I hate warm milk. We later compromised by letting me put cocoa powder in it.
- Eating or drinking cold items while on your period will cause complications later in life. My mom still seems stringent about this one.
- The reason why American women get cramps is because of their diet. Chinese women don’t get cramps. Interesting, and something I’ve thought about before. If anyone can point me to a research paper on this, linking cramps to diet, I’d like to read it.
- Placing your fridge under a lofted bed will make you sick. Because I did that my second year of college when there was no room in my dorm.
- Walking around in bare feet or socks will make you sick. You should wear slippers all the time in the house. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at to wear slippers. But it doesn’t seem like my mother is the only believer in this, since pretty much all Chinese people insist on slipper-wearing inside the house (but take off your shoes because they don’t want to get their precious floor/carpet dirty!)
- Lifting weights will stunt your growth. I did weight training for a couple of years in high school. I wish I hadn’t, but not for the same reason—I built up arm muscle that I can’t be bothered to keep toning.
- And conversely, playing basketball will make you taller. I told my mother I think she got that one the other way around, but she always encouraged my brother to play basketball with these exact hopes!
Share time! What has your mother (or father) told you?