Are there life lessons that moms can teach us?
Why, yes, of course.
In recent weeks, mothers have made the news for a number of reasons -- and given us some valuable advice in the process.
Here are six things we've learned from their examples:
Find the lesson in everything.
Life can get in the way of things. We all know that. And sometimes, kids have to grow up without a father. So was the case with Derek Williams, who recently wrote for NPR about how his mother taught him how to be a good person.
“My mom was this incredible woman who provided for us, made sure we ate, made sure we always had a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs,” Williams wrote. “She busted her rump to do that.”
Williams now has a new way to carry himself into adulthood. He can use the lessons from his mother and learn from the mistakes of his dad, he wrote.
“Because I've had to learn how to become a man in such a roller-coaster way, I have the luxury of being able to pick and choose from the way my mom was trying to raise me into this man and to learn from my father's mistakes,” William wrote.
It comes back around.
Supporting others may seem like a one-way street sometimes. But there’s always a chance someone will have your back when you need it most. That was the case in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where a woman named Carol Flynn helped a stranger in line pay for diapers, Today reported.
“I thought, ‘If she needs diapers, she must have a little one.’ Little ones are close to your heart when you’re a grandmother” said Flynn.
Follow your instincts.
An Amber Alert went out for a missing 6-year-old girl in the Phoenix area this week. The girl was found on Wednesday because of the maternal instincts of a store clerk, a local Fox news station reported. The clerk, Karin Akins, called the police when she noticed the woman with the baby, her grandmother, wasn’t acting very motherly.
“She took the baby bottle and went to the cappuccino machine and filled it up with cappuccino and poured strawberry milk in with it and shook it up,” Akins said.
You don’t have to be perfect.
Sasha Brown-Worsham wrote it simply for The Stir on Tuesday — moms often strive to be perfect, but that’s not always possible. Some imperfection needs to be accepted to create a happier lifestyle.
In her article, Brown-Worsham explained how she felt guilty about not being able to give each of her children the full attention he or she deserved as her family began to increase.
"No one is going to be the same mom to all their kids," Brown-Worsham wrote. "We grow and change and we learn as we go. By being resistant to changing the way I parented this baby to suit the time in my life, I was making things harder on us all. This is the mom I am now. A mom of three. I am not 'perfect.' Not even close. I AM a hell of a lot happier. And it's better than perfect."
Have fun.
Yes, even your mom is having fun.
A mom tried to prank her young daughter by giving her a tongue-in-cheek birthday gift — pants, The Blaze reported on Wednesday. But the child reacted in her own sassy way, surprising her mom with a smile as she opened the gift.
“Imagine the reaction on your child’s face if you decided to play a cruel birthday joke on her. Let’s say you decided that instead of giving your little girl the one thing you knew she really wanted, you decided to stuff the bag with a giant pair of men’s underwear and then record her dejected reaction,” Jonathon Seidl of The Blaze wrote. “Then imagine the look on your own face if your daughter stunned you by reacting in the best way possible, lavishing thanks and praise on you for such an awesome gift.”
Email: hscribner@deseretdigital.com
Twitter: @herbscribner