What did your parents teach you?

I always knew what my parents did for a living. My father worked in a factory for 40 years. I remember early morning, standing on a milk crate in the kitchen at about 4 years old, setting up the percolator. It’s an old school coffee pot for those that aren’t old enough to know. My mom was already at work long before we woke up, so it was my job to make his coffee and pack his lunch.
She was chief cook at the State Farmers’ Market restaurant. My grandparents previously owned it and had raised her in it. My dad always dropped me off there until she finished working. It was where I learned to make buttermilk biscuits and peach cobbler, standing on yet another crate. The storeroom was my daycare when I felt like I didn’t want to participate, usually when the biscuits were hot out of the oven. 😈
On the days that I ate all the dumplings, before filling his thermos with just the leftover gravy, we would take my daddy food. It was often. 🤭 I remember running up to the fence, happy as ever, to hand him the goods. I didn’t care that he always had that greasy apron on, and his hands were always nicked up by the die, fingers black from the machine lubricants. I never knew we were poor. Food stamps and powdered milk seemed normal to us. Hand-me-downs were always something that I was happy to receive. After all, they were new to me! 🎁
I’ve always made significantly more than my parents, pretty much since day one of adulthood, but I never looked down on them. They always had more than me. They had each other. Plus, I hadn’t figured out saving back then. 😆 Still, I make it a point to never stray far from my roots. My parents gave me their work ethic. I’m proud of who they were and what they did for a living. The pictures in my head of my mom’s food-stained clothing, flour on her face and in her hair, it will forever be burned in my brain. In my lifetime, I’ve lost everything three times over because I trusted the wrong person. My parents set the example though and I have always risen from the bottom.
Leaving Washington, I had only the clothes on my back and a small suitcase carrying a few changes of clothes. I left my husband in October 2020, with less than $1000 to my name. I drove cross country, stopping at Facebook friends’ houses to rest when I was tired. What a way to meet right? 😆 It is why I know that good people truly exist. The money had come by gifts from friends who had secretly Cash Apped it, so that my husband didn’t know I had it. He never even offered to help. He just expected me to use the credit cards he had all but maxed out. The money remained there, hidden until I was safely out of reach. No job waited for me. I only had the house back home and a game plan. I was making $85K in La Push, but he would find a way to always consume it. Once back in Florida, I took the first job I could get. It paid $16/hr. and really hurt my pride but the one thing I know to be true is that money in, is better than no money in and all money out. I remember my grandma telling me that.
I sat in self-pity, beating myself up for investing in the wrong person, briefly. For eleven months, I lived on credit cards, maxing them out and squeaking by with what little I made, but suddenly the gods showed me a light in the dark. A good woman showed me how to get back up (Thanks, Pam ❤️) and an opportunity presented itself shortly thereafter.
On my birthday 2021, I landed in Arizona to start a new job. It offered substantially more than I had ever earned, and I was desperate to rebuild. When I moved here, I was in debt almost $100K. Two old friends lived here and opened their homes to me. I was petrified at starting over. It seemed so much harder this time. I had less than $500 in my account, and my trust in the gods. I believed it was enough and it was.
Shortly after I arrived, my current boss approached me about returning to her company. She said name my price, so for once, I did. I didn’t give up the other job though. 😈 I worked both full time jobs for almost a year, getting less than 3–4 hours’ sleep nightly. I was determined to clean up my mess. Today, I only owe my car, my student loan and two credit cards, each now under $1000. Oh, and now the $5800 to the IRS because, who knew? I’d never made so much so I didn’t plan for that. 🤣 Lesson learned there.
I understand so much more by thinking back to the days I stood on a milk crate in the kitchen. I’ve worked as a telemarketer, a waitress, a window installer, and even an assembly line worker, before settling in my career as an accountant. I did whatever I needed to do in order to provide.
By watching my parents, I learned to never feel too good to do what it takes to care for your family. Grease and flour wash off, the legacy you leave behind, well that lasts a lifetime.
My son has 8 children. He and his wife struggle with so many, but I see them do whatever it takes to provide. My daughter absolutely hates accounting. She works for me. 😊 Her degree is in PR & Advertising, but she does it knowing it pads her resumé, setting her up comfortably when she spreads her wings. I can live with that. If ever I doubt myself as a mom, I look at their lives and tell myself that I did the best I could, and they got it. They have the will to thrive, no matter the circumstance.
I sometimes sit back and wonder if my mom was as proud of me, as I am of my children (including you, Emily ❤️).