Three Stories About My Mother

As a parent, have you ever had trouble getting your offspring out of bed, dressed, fed and off to school, in the morning? If you have, it may be a one-off incident or a regular event. In any case, you will know how difficult and time-consuming (I might even say, time-wasting) experience it can be. That’s without mentioning the psychological questioning you undergo; “am I a bad parent?”, “Could I do things better?”, “Why is this happening to me?”.

You are not alone. Yet, I can tell you one parent who rarely had such a problem; that person was my mother.

My mother used what I can only call a very effective alarm clock. I am not talking about a loud-ringing bedside clock, nor am I referring to any modern-day app. I am not even alluding to a bucket of cold water. My mother’s alarm clock was …

Well, let me explain;

As a family, we lived a little under four miles from the school I attended. I know this was the case because had we lived more than four miles away, I would have been entitled to a school bus pass. That would have meant I could have travelled free on the bus to and from school.

I mention not having a bus pass for school because it meant that I had to walk to school. Walking to school was, of course, a lot slower than taking the bus. Hence, it was important that I left home in good time. Leaving home on time relied upon getting out of bed, getting washed, dressed, and fed effectively.

I can reflect upon this now but at the time, as a teenager, I didn’t fully appreciate it. My mother, though, had a much better idea of how essential a good morning routine was and the importance of getting me out of bed promptly.

How she made sure I got up on time, is the subject of this story.

My mother was not the sort of person to spend a lot of time calling and shouting for me to get up. Neither was she the sort of person to resort to shaking or dragging me out of bed. Instead, she used a rather unusual ‘alarm clock’. It worked a bit like this …

My mother would open my bedroom door and call me when it was time to awaken and start getting ready. This was my one and only call. I would then have to get out of bed, go to the bathroom to wash, get dressed and finally come downstairs to have breakfast. On school days, my breakfast was a bowl of cooked porridge.

This was good because, as a lad, I liked porridge; I still do. For me, it was a pleasure to come downstairs to eat a bowl of freshly hot porridge. Herein lies the secret of my mother’s alarm clock.

If I did not get up in good time, or if I were slow, lazy, or dallied in getting washed or dressed. I would come downstairs to find the porridge would no longer be hot. If I were late or slow, the porridge would have become a cold, congealed lump in the bottom of the bowl. It would be difficult to break it with a spoon, but I would still have to eat it.

I learned quickly that if I got up on time and completed my washing and dressing efficiently, my morning porridge would be warm and welcoming. If not, I’d be faced with something a lot less palatable.

So that was my mother’s ‘unusual’ alarm clock for getting me up and off to school on time each school day morning; a bowl of porridge.

Of course, I cannot guarantee that porridge will work with all school-age children. I cannot even guarantee that it will work for your children, especially if they do not like porridge. It could be worth a try, though. If porridge does not work, well you could try it with other breakfast food. Toast or bacon could work well; anything that is less appetising as it gets colder or drier.