I've never forgotten a letter I once received from a reader, who told me about going to a dance when she was a teen. "My mother was waiting for me when I came home," she wrote. "But instead of telling her I had a great time, I regaled her with a scathing description of some incredible nerd who'd tried to dance with me. In essence, I said that this guy had a lot of nerve to expect anyone to dance with a person as weird and ugly as he was.
"When I finished my tirade, my mom said, 'You know, this boy you find ugly and weird is some mother's pride and joy. She waited for him to come home, just like I waited for you, hoping to hear he'd had a nice time at the dance. But when he came home, she saw his face, she knew someone hurt him, and it broke her heart. So the next time a boy asks you to dance, before you turn him down or make fun of him, just remember: Every boy is some mother's son.' "
The reader said she posted her mom's words in her college dorm, and she and her friends recited them before they went out. "It was a lesson in compassion," she said. "Treat everyone the way your mother would want everyone to treat you."
1 comment:
You would make me feel bad about not wanting to dance with Nick Banderski during the social dance unit of high school P.E....and his parents were brother and sister...or so it was rumored.
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