This month, we celebrate Mother’s Day, an occasion with which just about all of us can connect. Mothers, aunts, older sisters, family friends, mentors- somewhere, most of us have a female role model who means the world to us.  Every Mother’s day, in addition to my own mother and the other women in my life who shaped who I am today, I find myself thinking about Mary, Jesus’s mother.  What a tough job she had- and yet in many ways, my daily routine might be very familiar to her.  “Don’t stand on the table.  Stop throwing that inside.  Why is the goat wearing your shirt?”

Well, maybe not that last one.  Still, I love to imagine those wonderful, ordinary moments that made up the daily lives of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.  They surely had their frustrations, as we all do; the moments in Jesus’ childhood that we see in the Bible give us an idea, but there were certainly thousands of more mundane challenges lost to history.  He cannot have been an easy child to outwit in an argument.  This year on Easter, I found myself wondering whether Mary might have stood in shock in her son’s empty tomb, reaching down tin amazement to pick up the shroud lying on the ground and thinking to herself, despite the gravity of the moment, “Well, nothing’s changed- he still drops his clothes on the floor.”

In the years since Mary’s son grew up, the world He saved has changed dramatically, but mothers are still striving to raise healthy kids with good habits and the ability to look after themselves.  A lot of traditional advice stands the test of time, but a lot of it could use an update as well.  Let’s take a look at some pearls of maternal wisdom from days past.

Advice on illness: “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”  Frequently followed by “Here’s a bowl of chicken soup” no matter what was wrong with you.  Truthfully, you should try to eat when you’re sick, regardless of the cause; the immune system needs fuel to fight off that bug!  Chicken soup is a great choice; just watch the salt if you have heart failure or other salt sensitivities.   The honey and lemon Mom always put in your tea can help soothe your sore throat for a while, and most of these home remedies will work just as well as over the counter cold remedies, which give modest if any short-term relief. While we’re at it, no, you can’t catch cold from being cold, so putting that sweater on won’t keep you healthy.  Still, it might make your mother feel warmer if she sees you wearing it.

Advice on injuries:  Ignore Mom’s advice to put butter on burns; the fat in the butter slows the cooling process after a burn and prolongs the heat damage.  You can also ignore Mom’s advice to let cuts air out; skin breaks of all kinds heal better in a moist wound environment, so keeping wounds covered with an adhesive bandage with any first aid ointment (even plain petroleum jelly) for at least a few days will lead to faster, less painful healing.  For nosebleeds, pinch your nostrils together for five minutes like Mom said, but tip your head forward rather than back.  This way the blood won’t run down your throat and lead to nausea and vomiting (or black stools).

Advice about water:  No one knows where the recommendation to drink eight glasses of water a day came from, but modern mothers should let this one pass into obscurity. Too much water is as bad for you as not enough; drink to thirst, or to keep your urine light yellow to clear.  Eight glasses a day is enough to give a lot of people dangerously low sodium levels.  A better use for that extra water is hand washing.  Mom is spot on; wash those hands, it’s the best thing you can do for your health!   If you fancy full body submersion, go ahead and swim after a meal; there’s no health risk.

We could keep going, but the point here is that mothers love their kids and want to give them every chance to be well and to do well, and to make the world a better place.  As God gave Mary to Jesus to help Him along his way, so God has given us mothers to do the same for us.  In our own time, we in turn will pass the blessings on to our kids, part of a chain of mothers reaching back millenia, to Mary and beyond.   Treasure the mothers in your life as a gift from God, even the ones to whom you aren’t actually related.

And pick those clothes up off the floor.  It’ll make Mom happy.

Michele Rutledge