Things your mother said!

When mother could see something I was frantically searching for, she would say, “It would bite bite you if it had a tongue,”. Still can’t quite get my head around that one.

Mine used to say when we were fighting: "I don't care who STARTED it, and I don't care whose FAULT IT IS, and I don't care who FINISHED it."

That one took me back MissA

The main ones which comes to mind are 'You have to suffer to be beautiful' and 'if you don't wear a roll-on your tummy muscles will become flabby'
The 'if you can't say anything nice ' one I had to say to my mother when she was in hospital and was rude to the nurses. Next time I visited she sat tight-lipped and said not a word!

My mun used to say 'if the wind turns you'll stay looking like that' when i cried or moaned about anything,the other saying was 'you've a face like a cat's bum turned inside out!!!

When I fell off my bike and chipped a front tooth "Oh dear you won't be able to be an air hostess now" my cousin was one, not that I had any ambitions in that direction at 7 years old I coveted the hat though the only reason I joined the Guides after Brownies the hat resembled those worn by BOAC at the time

"For heaven's sake marry a man who can put up shelves" (apropos of my father's non existent DIY skills

"Pick up your feet" me returning from school apparently she could hear my clip clopping from afar

During my teens as I was rushing out the door "you can't live on coke, crips and chocolate, you need to come home and eat a proper meal"
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Also in my teens "will you stop leaving banana skins and apple cores around your bedroom and I know it's a strange concept but have you considered hanging your clothes up in the wardrobe instead of leaving them in piles around the floor,?when I go in there, it makes me shudder, I have to come out again quickly" How those words resounded when my children hit the same age.

Always heard muttering after one of us called out "muuuum" "I'm going to change my name"

"You'll be laughing on the other side of your face in a minute!"
"I'm not as green as I'm cabbage looking".

Ooh I forgot the most sneaky one - if she thought I might have been up to something she would look me straight in the eye and say “do you have anything you want to share with me?” This was delivered with steely menace and I always ‘fessed up immediately. In her later life she confessed that it was her favourite game!

My mother used to say exactly what KatyK's mother said as well as what would happen if I did not stop crying.

Sometimes it would be too warm for snow, others it was too cold.

My underwear did not have to be matching, only clean in case I was run over by a bus.

I also was likely to get piles sitting on anything cold like a pavement. She was a trained nurse so where she picked up that rubbish I have no idea.

I was forced to eat all of my food and if I did not want it, which was fairly frequent, I was told that there were children in Africa starving so I would say, send it to them.

“If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all”
“Do as you would be done by”
“And you can wipe that look off your face”
She was an old-school teacher!

'A little of what you fancy does you good'. She lived to be 95 so she may have been right.

I remember being asked if I wanted a smack as well KatyK there is no answer to that is there?
My daughter told me before she had any children that she would not say the same things to them I said to her. After she had the children she said she just heard the words coming out of her mouth. !!
"Will you frame" was another saying from my exasperated mother. God doesn't pay his debts in money was another.

My grandmother used to say, of a singer she didn’t like, “Hark at him, singing his instrels out.” I think it was a elision of “entrails” and “minstrels.”
My mother used to sing AT us when she was cross: I don’t think anyone could sing “You are my sunshine” with more venom.

Mum and Maternal Gran both said, “make sure you always have clean matching underwear, you never know when you will be run over by a bus”?
To this day I cannot wear undies that do not match!!

Floradora9. the mother of a friend used to say a similar thing about sewing needles, asking her why she used a hedgestake instead of a smaller needle!
Mum used to say we’d get piles sitting on a cold pavement. (Didn’t know what they were then)

My mother used to say "no peace for the wicked" which often comes to mind when I have too much to do.
"Good things come in small parcels" referred to the fact that she was small.

Every time I thread a needle and can hear my mother saying " thread me a needle please and not a dagger " I used to pick too large needles.

When my 50ish daughter ( who doesn’t live with me ) was heading home the other day I automatically said ‘ have you got your keys’ the look I got was enough ?

I did have a wake up generational call yesterday when talking to my grandson about job nterviews and I said ‘ well a bird in the hands worth two in the Bush. I wish I had a picture of his face which showed a what the f expression he had never heard it used before and being a fairly black and white thinker was trying hard to process what jobs had to do with bushes and birds !!!

'Do you want a slap?' Erm..... obviously not! 'Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about'.

My mother asked me if I was wearing a vest even when in my fifties .

One thing which never made sense to me when talking of things going on with people we knew - ‘she/ he is no better than they ought to be ‘ , wish I had asked what she meant

Have you got your vest on? She was still saying it when I was in my forties when she died.