Write Your Mother's Story

 

I like today's poster a lot. It's the perfect one to encourage you and me to write our family stories. 

Why not begin with your mother? As Mitch Albom, author, says '...hers (story) is where yours begins.' So, why not begin with your mother? 

Write about the place she was born and when. Urban or rural? 

Was she an only child, or one of several children? If so, where did she fall in age with her siblings? 

What kind of job did her father have? 

Did her mother work or stay at home with the children? 

Did her parents' political beliefs influence her?

What kind of personality did she have? Was she warm and loving, or rather distant? 

Was she a good cook, or just managed to put food on the table?

Did she make a big deal of holidays, or did she barely mark them?

What was her marital status through her life? Married, divorced, widowed? 

What did she teach you that you have remembered?

How did she dress? Simply, or with high fashion taste?

Did she do community work? 

Did she introduce you to religion?

What kind of punishment did she give you and siblings?

What were her hobbies?

Did you love her or merely tolerate her?

Answer the questions above, and you'll have plenty to write about your mother for your Family Stories Book. The questions I've given you will help to paint a character sketch. Next, you can write stories about her, one by one. 

Sometimes, we don't understand what pur mothers did during our childhood. Later, you can talk to her about the what and why. I come from a family of four children, and I'm the only girl and the oldest. My mother often seemed to favor one brother over the rest of us. As an adult, I asked her why she did so. Her simple answer told me a lot. She said, "Because he needed me the most." She was right, and his growing up years are another story to be written and added to the others.