Are You Good Mama?

Hopefully, Mother won't be a "mad mama" today, even though she doesn't like for her name to appear in the blog posts I write. Since she has been and continues to be a "good mama" she needs to be praised. Happy Mother's Day to each of you women who serve so selflessly your families.

Angie, my sister, was quite young when Mother was threatening to discipline her. She looked at Mother, asking soberly, “Are you mad mama?”* To which our easy-going mother retorted, “Yes, I’m mad.” Angie shot back quizzically, “Are you good mama?” Mother, many years later, said that exchange disconcerted her momentarily until she clarified, “Yes, I’m a good mama, but I want you to mind.” 

Photograph taken after Mary Jo Thurber Sexton's
wedding. Mother was the vocal soloist and Linda 
Mitchell and I were the candle lighters during the
ceremony at the Masham Baptist Church on 
October 12, 1963. Angie was barely 2 years old, 
Mother was almost 39 years old, and I was 7. This
was about the age Angie was when she asked the 
"mad mama, good mama" questions.

On this Mother’s Day, Angie and I celebrate a mother who practiced good discipline measures with us. As a strong-willed child, she could not let much slide with me. Be assured, I would push the envelope with her if she had allowed it. For the record, Angie was more compliant and calm as a child than I was. I did not recall the "mad mama, good mama" conversation. It must have happened while I was at school.

I was about four years old living in the pink house where Mother and I still live. We had lived in the new house only a short time. Angie would be born later in the year. Even at that young age, I loved to play paper dolls. For the first time in my life, I had my own room. I had played with several different paper dolls using my imagination all day long. It was getting late. Mother was preparing supper because Dad would be coming in soon from Ponca City where he was constructing new homes with Uncle Herb Gates. She had told me to put them up numerous times. My response, “I will.” But I kept playing.

Soon darkness began to fall. Dad pulled in and came in to check on me. Unbeknown to me, Mother let him know she had told me to put away the paper dolls and expected me to put them up before coming to supper.

Dad made no attempt to change Mother’s mind, but he did come to my bedroom and attempted to help me clean up the paper dolls. It prompted me to say, “Oh no, Daddy. That is not where those clothes go.” Mother had taught me to organize all my paper dolls so I could enjoy playing with them and quickly put them up. So, Dad just sat with me chatting as I worked diligently to put the paper dolls into their boxes getting the bedroom cleaned and obeyed Mother’s seemingly unattainable demand. I learned excuses and procrastination had no bearing on Mother’s directives. I jokingly have told Angie our mother (and Dad) helped make us valued employees in our respective careers with their consistent discipline.

Good parents provide the foundation for their children learning to trust and obey God. As we recall loving mothers who gave us direction in the right way to respond to meaningful instructions for living our lives, may we heed the words Solomon wrote in Proverbs 3:11-12 as a clear guideline to obeying the heavenly Father.                                                                                             

My son, do not reject or take lightly the discipline of the LORD [learn from your mistakes and the testing that comes from His correction through discipline]; Nor despise His rebuke, for those whom the LORD loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.

*Mother said she had to discipline when she was upset with us. She knew if she let much time elapse, due to her easygoing nature, no discipline would be meted out.