The Loudest Words My Mother Never Said

My mom turned 90 last November. She is very smart and wildly funny—as is pretty much everyone in my family—and she is not shy about telling you what’s on her mind. In the last couple of months, she has had plenty to say about my hair and Lucas Harrell (an Astros pitcher), among many other things and people.

However, when I was growing up, she and my dad never really “laid down the law.” For some reason, my brother and I always just knew what we needed to do and never pushed our parents. Somehow, they just instilled this knowledge without us knowing it was happening. We were the proverbial “good kids.”

My mom still lives in the house where all this instilling took place. The upstairs bedrooms belonged to my brothers and me, and the upstairs bathroom was ours alone to fight over and keep clean.

For decades, my mom was the Queen of Newspaper Clippings. She called it “Mom’s Clipping Service.” (This was a lot funnier back in the day when a clipping service was an actual thing. Now, I refer to her as “ENN—The Erla News Network.”)  Cartoons or articles or recipes were routinely clipped; when we left home, envelopes of clippings would arrive in the mail.

Periodically, she taped cartoons on the bathroom mirror, usually Peanuts cartoons involving Lucy lording her big-sister status over Linus or something about how much shampoo and hot water was being used. She always brought it up in conversation because it was always funny and generally on point, and we all laughed over them. Eventually, they crumbled and were replaced with some newer clipping and another conversation and another laugh.

But sometime in the mid-1970s, an Ann Landers (or maybe Dear Abby) column appeared on the bathroom mirror. It said this:

Submit to pressure from peers and you move down to their level.

Speak up for your own beliefs and you invite them up to your level.

If you move with the crowd, you'll get no further than the crowd.

When 40 million people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea.

Simply swimming with the tide leaves you nowhere.

So if you believe in something that's good, honest and bright, stand up for it.

Maybe your peers will get smart and drift your way.

Today, some 40 years later, it is still there, taped to the mirror. It’s darkened by age and a bit crumbly. It’s not even intact anymore, but I know what it says because I’ve brushed my teeth, dried my hair, washed my hands, applied my make-up to that quote hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

Here is what is so remarkable (aside from the fact that it hasn’t completely disintegrated): my mother has never once mentioned it. Never. Ever. We never brought it up either. “Someone” occasionally re-taped it over the years, but it wasn’t one of the kids. My younger brother and I have talked about this phenomenon with each other, but neither of us has ever mentioned it to my mother. She would definitely remember it, because she remembers everything.

What effect did these words have on us? Was it part of my parents’ “parenting by stealth” plan? Heaven knows, no one in my family has ever had a problem speaking his or her mind or standing up for something we believe in. I think about these words all the time. Not just when I’m brushing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom at my mom’s house, but all the time. Sometimes I think I should tell my mom this. If you’re reading this and you know my mom, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything. It’s kind of an inside job.

I don’t know who wrote those words, but I doubt there’s any other family who could claim them in the way we can.