Tags
child-rearing, family, Home economics, love, memories, Middle school, motherhood, Sewing machine
When I was in Junior High School, I took “Home Economics.” We were taught the basics of cooking and sewing. In my sewing class, I made an apron. I did not work awfully hard on it, just did what I needed to do to get by and finish the damn thing. I took it home when the school year was finished.
My mother, an artist on a thousand levels (sewing, sculpture, painting, upholstery, pottery, etc) looked at it and said, “You’ll need to make this over again.”
I teared up, ran to my room, and sulked for an hour or so. Soon she came in with
the apron. She had undone the sewing–the apron was in pieces.
“Come into the sewing room and we’ll do this over again,” she said.
I said I don’t want to do it again. I hate sewing.
“I can see that,” she said. ”You don’t have to ever sew anything again if you don’t want to, but you’ll make this one and only thing over again and this time we’ll do it right.”
And I did. She helped me and I redid the sloppy, half-hearted work I thought I was done with and, when it was done, it looked pretty good. In fact, it looked very good.
My mother smiled and nodded at the apron and at me. ”It’s good,” she said. We ironed it and my mother hung it over the hook near the stove. She put it on to make dinner that night and many nights after that. It was worth wearing.
I’ve never developed a love for sewing. But, I have developed a desire to do whatever it is I am doing with some pride. Dislike doesn’t cancel out the personal pride factor. It was a good lesson.
