For Mother’s Day, Classic Mom-isms

and I wanted to find out a few of our writers' favorite tips.

When you're first moving into your home, make sure that you change the beddy scene

to smoke the tent through. Buy mattress bag, but you can carry a mattress more easily because the handles are built in, and it's going to protect your mattress from the truck and the street. Make sure you have towels on hand, you don't want to end up taking a shower and using a dirty sock to dry off. Yeah. If you're getting ready to move, let Wirecutter help you make a plan,

at nytimes.com/moving. Hello. Hi, Mom. I'm Anh Anh. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm thank you. What's going on?

“I told you we're doing this Mother's Day episode, right?”

Yes, you did. Okay, so the idea for it is that we've been collecting all of these expressions that moms say, like mom, Montrose were sort of calling them, little bits of advice that moms repeat over time. Oh, isn't that cute? Yes. Can you guess what I've told people yours is?

No, I can't. Really? No, I can't. What is it? These are the good old days. Oh, of course, right. Yeah, of course. Which you mean it like regardless of whatever's happening, no matter how old you are,

you're always going to look back at like this moment as the good old days, right?

Yes, because we look back at things that we say, all of this was so wonderful, but we don't appreciate them. When they're happening, and if you look at things as you would look at them from the future, then you can see how precious they are much more easily. Where did this even come from this phrase? Did you make it up?

I don't think I made it up, but it's just from experience. It's like, I look at that photo, and I started the time. I looked so this and so that. It's like, wow, looking at that time. Years later, I looked so wonderful. I wish I could have appreciated it. Then, I don't know how many decades it took me to finally realize that, you know,

but I did want to pass that onto you before it's too late. And I'm so happy it took. OK, Mom, I have one more question for you.

“Since this is a Mother's Day show, will you help me do the billboard for it?”

What does that mean? You know what the billboard of the show is? No.

The billboard is the thing that's like, from the New York Times, I'm reach related firms.

This is the daily. OK. So, you start out by saying, from the New York Times, I'm, and then you say your name. So, can you say that? OK.

You want to practice? Yeah. From the New York Times, I'm Alice Chuffler Abrams. Excellent. And now you say, this is the Sunday Daily. This is the Sunday Daily.

Can you try it? Can you try to sell me on it, Mom? OK, should I do OK. From the New York Times, I'm Alice Chuffler Abrams. And this is the Daily. The Sunday Daily.

From the New York Times, I'm Alice Chuffler Abrams. And this is the Sunday Daily. I'll do the next part. OK. Today, we partnered with the well-deskier to do a call-out to readers

for your Mom Montrose. And you sent us voice memos. So many voice memos. About the expressions that your mom's used all the time that have stuck with you

“and that imparted some important wisdom about life.”

It's Sunday May 10th. Actually, Mom, you want to say that? It's Sunday May 10th. OK. It's Sunday May 10th.

And we'll be right back with your mom Montrose. Wait, what do I say now? We'll be right back. We'll be right back with your mom Montrose. I gave my brother a New York Times subscription.

She sent New York long subscription so I have access to all the games. We'll do a word of many spelling bee. It has given us a personal connection. We change articles. And so having read the same article, we can discuss it.

The coverage, the options, not just news. That should diversify this. I was really excited to give him a New York Times cooking subscription so that we could share recipes. And we even just shared a recipe the other day.

The New York Times contributes to our quality time together. You have all of that information on your fingertips. It enriches our relationship, broadening our horizons. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift. We're reading the same stuff, we're making the same food,

we're on the same page. Connect even more with someone you care about. Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift at nytimes.com/gift. My name is Jane D.

My mother had a lot of sayings. I don't know if they're mantras, but they're certainly momisms.

“Every time my brother or sister or I were about to leave the house,”

she would remind us that all tragedy starts out in fun. I'm sorry, but wait and bring the room down mom. (upbeat music) My mom is a mom mantra. "Hey, you're not the only tin can in the dump."

Gargle was saltwater, grab it and grow. Life is like a mardi Gras. You're just rattling around like a fart in a skillet. I'm Alex and I'm from Montana for Montenegro. My mom's expression is, boo.

Let me explain.

My mom's the first grade teacher and one day when she was co-teaching,

“this little boy stands up in the middle of her lesson,”

looks at her and just goes, boo. Traditionally, Boing is not encouraged at his school, but when she got home that day, she told me about it. And we couldn't help but laugh because it's kind of the perfect response to any situation where you have no control, but you are not happy about it.

Howdy, I'm Richard Martin from Austin, Texas. Texas is a state roaming with colorful expressions, and one that I heard frequently from my grandmother was taking an onion out of that stew, which meant I know you're lying to me straight up and tell the truth. Hello, my name is Gwen Harvey.

I live in Portland, Oregon. My mom's expression was, "When in doubt, clean."

“If something is bothering you, dear child,”

put yourself to work. Clean a closet, clean out, if a cupboard, wash the car, wash the dog. If you haven't figured out and answer our answers, at least you come away with some evidence of things being better.

Howdy, hi. This is Bobby. I'm in central Texas. I got a great story for you, okay? I was stopped by the folks' house, and I was pulling into the garage. And as I pulled in, I noticed Mom had a half bottle of winddacks in one hand and a cleaning rag in the other.

And she was stepping back, she was looking back at whatever she had been winddaxing, and as I got out of my car, I said, "Mom, what's you doing?" And she says, "I just finished winddaxing the water heater." And I said, "Oh, God, I'm eye-me-my eyes rolled back in my head."

So I said, "Mom, honey, it's time for you to get a hobby." And she just kept grinning and beaming and staring at that water heater. And she says, "I love the smell of winddax in the morning. It smells like victory." My name is Jessie Kay, and I live in Miami, Florida.

My mom always tells me, "Jessie, with one behind you,

can't sit on the whole world." And this is passed down from my grandmother, who used to tell us, "With one thoughtless, you can't sit on the whole world." And what my mom means by this is essentially, you can't do everything at once.

Hi, my name is Jiselle Golgé, and I live in Frederton, New Brunswick, Canada. My mother, Gael, has a favorite expression, and it is, "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip." And it means, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Don't get cocky." And it's meant to bring someone down a pig.

But my mother, being the wonderful person that she is,

she always means it in the context of "Don't worry."

Everything is always changing all the time everywhere. You know, that situation at work that you can't control, that your convinced is going to end badly. It probably won't. And if it does, it's probably not going to be as bad as you think,

Hi, my name is Janine, and I'm from Philadelphia. When I was going through my teenage years, my mom would say the same thing to me. Every time I was heading out the door to meet up with friends. Without fail, she would say, "No sex, no drugs, only, rock and roll." Hi, my name is Toby Crocket, and I'm from Passa Robless in California.

My mom's expression was, "Don't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs."

I was always like, "Okay, well, why would anybody want to suck eggs?"

One, "Why would anybody need to be taught how to suck eggs?" Two, and what do my grandmother have to do with it,

“because she did not seem like the egg-sucking type?”

Of course, later, I learned more about it, you know, and understood that this was supposed to mean, "Hey, stupid whipper Stanford, don't tell me how to do what I already know how to do." Like, a million times better than you do, and while if I have been somewhat confusing as a child, now that I'm in my 60s, "Oh, it's so righteous."

How many times do I want to say this? It's sort of like the all-purpose version of mansblinging, like, "Don't mansbling me," and don't teach me how to suck eggs, either.

“My name is Hilary Smith. I live in Brooklyn, New York.”

I was in middle school, and I was having some kind of meltdown about a school project

that just felt too big and too overwhelming, and that I was never going to get it done.

And in the middle of my freak out, my mom said to me, "Hillary, how do you eat an elephant?" And I was kind of like, "What? What?" She asked me, and I thought about it, and I was like, "In a giant gold?" And she was like, "No, one bite at a time." Hi friends, this is Jonathan Cabrera. I'm originally from Greensboro, North Carolina,

and I've lived in New York for 11 years. My mom's mantra motto expression was, "Sing out, Louise."

“Which, for those of you who don't know, is a famous line from the musical gypsy,”

and my mother, Paulink Cabrera, was Mama Rose incarnate. She just was with a force of life and a tornado in every room she walked into,

and sing out Louise meant to my mother to always let your presence be known

in every room that you walk into, to make a choice, be specific in that choice, damn the torpedoes on whatever choice you did make, and to Carpe Diem. Hi, I'm Phoebe. I'm from Fairfield, Connecticut. I come from a long line of Syrian women who have intense, unfriendly, frowning faces, and when people meet us, they tend to think, "We don't like them." And so, usually, this is something that I try to overcome, but my mom always always reminds

us that we have a Syrian look, and we can use it on anyone who has wronged us, or whenever we need to stand up for ourselves. If someone is being need to us at school, she would say, "Give them the Syrian look." And she met, cut your eyes to them, give them the stank eye, and let them know, "You can't be messed with." My name is Sean Statham, I live in Seattle. My mom's expression was roll with the cookie.

And she would say this typically, when the plan said suddenly, "Gone, all right." And she needed her five children to get in line in hurry. And when I was older, I realized that this was her unintentional mash-up of roll with the punches, and that's the way the cookie crumbles. And when I was younger, I thought every family used it, and I was later did I realize that it was unique to us. Hi, I'm Cariogradian, I'm from Manhattan. So my mom's mantra was, "If you feel bad, look better."

When I was a teenager, anytime I felt bad, whether it be over a boy or my skin or just life in

“general, my go-to was wanting to hide. In my room, in bed, sweatpants, PJs, no makeup, and probably”

Ben and Jerry's. But my mom would come in and she would say, "Get up, put on something cute, do your makeup, and you'll feel better." And at the time, I found this insanely annoying, and to be honest, I still do. But now, I'm almost 43, and I'm a professor, and I commute nearly four and a half hours to and from my university multiple days per week. I live out of bags, and I'm perpetually exhausted. But when I pack now, I find myself throwing in something a little extra,

whether it be a zebra print or a bedazzled headband or some high heels. I've even perfected applying eyeliner on the Peter Pan bus. So when I get to work, and a student says to me, "I love your outfit today, or you look great today," I immediately feel more awake than I would otherwise. More ready to conquer my day. And while I'm still not ready to say my mom was right, I'll admit that she was onto something. Hi, my name is Needson. I'm from New York,

grew up in New Jersey, and my mom's line anytime we went shopping. I'd pick something up, candle, a jewelry box, ripped jeans, literally anything, and she turned it over in her hands, pause, and without fail, say, "We can make that, and then return the item to the shelf." Hello, my name is Aaron, and I'm from Irvine, California, and one of my mom's favorite expressions is the grass will soon turn to milk. If you think about a cow in a field of grass,

the cow eats the grass, and then the grass goes through this labyrinthine digestive process, and then becomes milk eventually, right? So it's this idea that it might take a while, but your hard work will pay off and result in this beautiful delicious, good thing, the milk. My mom, as a mother of 12, had many mantras. One of my favorite ones was O'Honey Sheet's suffers from terminal uniqueness. A hundred years from now, home, all the difference.

If in doubt, do without. Oh, God, who cares? We're on an adventure! Don't make fun of something that someone that you love loves. Hi, my name is Anna Curtis, and I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, my mother's thing was there isn't a shroud with pockets big enough, which is a slightly more morbid way of saying you can't take it with you when you go.

That my mother lived that. She lived that by having adventures, by going and exploring, by not just adventures in terms of travel, but adventures in terms of things that she did with her

“life, the way she raised six children. It all fell into this idea that life is for the now,”

and you have to grab it, and there was always an adventure in our lives.

Even things like, we took an epic road trip from Winnipeg, Manitoba, up to Circle Alaska, on an unpaved Alaskan highway in a Volkswagen Beetle with nothing but a tent on the top. And that's reflective of the fact that they didn't sit back and go, "Well, we haven't got enough money to go." They just went, "How do we make this happen? How do we have this adventure in our lives?" And so one of my mother passed away many years ago. There wasn't any money left.

That's okay. There wasn't a shroud with pockets big enough. Hello, my name is Danielle, and I live in Alamo, California. My mom is this tiny, fiery, extremely loving little Sicilian woman to know her is to be loved by her and protected by

“her, but if you do something she thinks is not right, you will know it. This is important”

in the context for her mantra that has always stuck with me, which is just because someone throws

you a football, doesn't mean you have to catch it. And what she means by that is that all through

and you can just say, "Thank you for the feedback," and just not take it in because it wasn't yours.

“Hi, my name is Kelsey, and I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. My mom always used to say”

"some things just are." Originally the story behind it was, I was a kid that just needed to know, "Why? Why? Why?" And I imagine for a mom, juggling all of the things that she was at that time, and having the kid who my dad said came out of the shoot, litigating, that's a little crass,

but when you're younger, you always believe there's an answer for absolutely everything. And so,

as I got older, I sort of just tapped into it, kind of like a touchstone, and I would remind myself, some things just are. Hi, I'm Jeff, and I live in Little Rock Arkansas. My mother's mantra was, "If you're lost, any road will take you there." My name is Diane Falcom, I live in Yonkers, New York. Something I heard from my mom a lot when I was growing up was "God punishes you." And you might wonder, "Why would your mom say that to you?"

For some context, my mom was a developed Catholic. She tried to become a nun twice in her life. My parents were very active in their parents. We did church on Sundays, and I even more that little boyly on my head, back when women had to wear that church on Sundays. So, God and my household was big deal. So, if someone were to have a minor injury like they would bump through head or step their toe or pinch a finger instead of getting a response from my mom like, "Oh, are you okay?

I would get God punishes you." Which for me, I was horrifying, first of all, because I'm a tiny child.

I don't know what I did to piss off God, but I feel like it was my mom's way of saying, "Well,

“you must have done something to deserve that. I didn't see it, so God punishes you."”

I'm K from Port Angeles, Washington, and my mom's mantra was, "This too shall pass." Oh boy, did I hate to hear that? She'd say it when I was a teenager and I don't know if I was complaining or something, and you know, honestly, it felt a little dismissive. But now, I'm 61 years old. I kind of get it. And I would so love to hear her say that to me again. I'm a single.

Our mother would say, "Rain makes you beautiful. Misery is optional."

It's never so bad that it couldn't be worse. She said that I should love myself first.

There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience. Hi, I'm Amy Marcus, and I'm from Kailua, Hawaii, living in the San Francisco Bay area.

“My phrase that I remember my mom saying a lot, the one that sticks with me,”

is "Don't make big decisions late at night." And she used to say this to me on the phone when I would call her from college, because she was still living in Hawaii, and I was upstate New York, so I could call her late at night, and it would still be, you know, dinner time for her. And I could call her with my anxieties, my worries, my stresses, whatever, just to chat. And I remember her saying, "Just get some sleep, get some rest. Don't make big decisions late at night."

And now, as a parent to a two-year-old myself, for these last few years of pregnancy and new parenthood, I really wish I could call her, and I can't, because she passed away at the end of 2020, unexpectedly. So, you know, parenting has you up at all hours, getting so little sleep, and you find yourself maybe googling, sleep training advice for your baby in the middle of the night, and then I would hear my mom's voice and she would say,

"No, don't do this right now. Go to sleep, get some rest, make this decision,

Hey, this is Sarah from Madison, Wisconsin. One of my mom's favorite expressions was, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

“As a kid, I remember her using it in seemingly unrelated situations. You know, like,”

at a family potluck, someone would say, "Oh, I wish we had remembered the mayonnaise." And my mom would say, "Well, if wishes were horses and beggars would ride, totally confusing." To things like, "I wish I had gotten into that college." "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

And I kind of just always blew it off, because I'm like, "I know I knew what you mean by that."

“But a few years ago, my mom received a terminal cancer diagnosis, and I think I finally knew what she meant,”

because life throws stuff at us, and you didn't want it, and you can wish it wasn't happening, and I did. But that doesn't get you very far. I miss my mom every day, but I'm so grateful to have had her and all of her seemingly crazy sayings that have dumped so much to help me navigate. Life without her. Hi there, my name is Rosemary Roe. I live in San Ishton, British Columbia on Vancouver Island in Canada,

and an expression that I associate with my awesome mom is, "You're a human being. Not a human doing."

As in, just being is enough. Now, I have to say, this was always a bit rich coming from my mom,

who's a very energetic, accomplished, go-go kind of person. When she was about 40, my mom went through a very intense personal psychological journey of breakthrough and recovery, and she ended up switching careers, she got her PhD, she became a psychologist, but it was around this time those early days when she started saying to my brother and I, "You're a human being. Not a human doing." And as the years went by, that expression really stuck around. Anyway, I feel like this is

a great full circle opportunity for me because my mom is in her 70s now, and she's recently had a serious heart surgery, and she's been that frustrated by the pace of her recovery because she's still a very energetic, accomplished, go-go kind of person. So I just want to take this opportunity to remind her that mom, mom, you're a human being. Not a human doing. We'll be right back. Okay, mom, so now that we've listened to a whole lot of wisdom from other moms, mom, do you have

any advice for future moms? There's a mantra that you've said to me about being a parent. I wonder if

“you remember what it is. When you have kids, you do the best job that you can, and then you”

pray that they forgive you. Oh, that's it. Yeah. I'm curious where it came from. Oh, that's next my own. So, okay, so my advice for for mothers is that we all do the best we can with what we have,

it's the hardest job in the world, and we're all second guessing ourselves, and we make so many

so many choices, and you just do the best you can, and you just hope your kids forgive you, and you do everything with love, and even when you're short with them, and you're upset, you're still doing the best you can with what you have, and you just pray, and you just love them.

I love you too, honey. I love you too, honey. Okay, now I have to go recover. Thanks, dear. Okay, bye bye.

“Thank you to all the listeners who sent us voice memos. We got more than we could”

possibly include, but you all have very quotable moms, and we enjoyed listening to all of them.

Today's episode was produced by Tina Antelini, and was edited by Wendy Doer,

“with production assistance from Dahlia Hadad. It contains music by Pat McCusker,”

Mary and Lasano, Dan Powell, and Leah Shaw Dameron. It was engineered by Rowan Nymisto, special thanks

to Katherine Pearson, and Meloneys McCaffee. That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.