7 Things Every Maltese Mother Did When We Were Kids
Buying uniforms too large for your tiny body, threatening that ‘il-babaw’ will come for you if you don’t go to bed, and reminiscing on the days when they had to cross mountains and rivers to get to school, are all things that most Maltese mums have done.
And yes, we all have lived the same life!
Here are seven things that all Maltese mothers totally did when we were still kids.
1. Insisted you take off your jacket ‘għax tieħu riħ’.
As soon as you step indoors, she starts chiming and telling you to take off your jacket otherwise, you won’t ‘feel the benefits’ when you go outside, and end up catching a cold.
2. Aggressively sang along to Mur Ħallini by Freddie Portelli in the car.
And I swear sometimes it felt like she was addressing it to us…
3. Had a cupboard filled with mismatched Tupperware
Not one lid matches one container. The sacred cupboard, no one shall touch it – a cupboard filled with Tupperware haphazardly tossed in.
4. Constantly reminded us how good we have it
Back in the day, they’d apparently cook their food on an open fire, hunted and gathered all their ingredients by hand, and walked all across Malta to get to… anywhere – and no, it wasn’t the stone age.
5. Got the lyrics wrong to every song that ever existed
Story time: my mum always sang ‘show me how f*ing strong is your fight’ to Michael Jackson’s Beat it, instead of ‘showin’ how funky and strong is your fight’.
This is one I distinctively remember- but there are way, way more…
6. Said ‘Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll freeze that way’
I don’t know how this became a thing, or why mums say this. Is it backed up by science?
7. Asked if you needed the bathroom three times before you went out somewhere
And now I habitually cannot leave the house without going to the bathroom first, even if I don’t need to go – as if public toilets are non-existent.
Despite all of this, they would have died for us, and did literally everything for us, and for this, we will never be able to pay them back.
Thank you to all the mothers out there who had to deal with or are still dealing with children, because the older I get, the more I realise what a nightmare they are – as I probably was.
What funny things did/does your mother do?
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