Dear One, I want you to know that you should listen to your mother.

You see, I wish I had taken more time over the years to listen to my own Mama, and now I’m trying to catch up. Days move quickly, and sometimes I realize that it’s been a week since I picked up the phone and heard her voice, so familiar, a voice that has calmed and chastised, encouraged and disciplined, taught and told off. I’ve not always listened terribly well, although I want to an awful lot more these days than I did when I was a teenager.

This past Christmas, your Grandma, my Mama, gave me a magazine clipping, which has been on the fridge these last ten months.

If I had my child to raise over again
I’d build self-esteem first and the house later.
I’d finger paint more and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch and watch with my eyes
I would care to know less and know to care more
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites
I’d stop playing serious and seriously play
I would run through more fields and gaze and more stars
I’d do more hugging and less tugging
I’d see the oak inside the acorn more often
I would be firm less often and affirm much more
I’d model less about the love of power
And more about the power of love.
Diane Loomans

There is an awful lot of learning to be had right there in those fourteen simple lines. I think that since you came around, your Grandma still has things to tell her daughter, now that I’m just learning about how to be a mother.

Listen to your Mama, Dear One, because I’m still listening to mine, and she has an awful lot to teach us both.

Ellen