Respect Your Body
Whether it’s sobering up, swapping junk food for vegetables or saving yourself for marriage, parents always have something to say about respecting yourself.
“All that shite you’re shovelling into your body will take its toll. Look at your father after what he did to himself as a young lad”
Don’t go Mad on R.A.G. Week
This one is inevitable. When that week starts to roll around, suddenly the dynamics of the house begin to change. Mammy breaks out in random cold sweats and Daddy winces every time you add to your alcohol stash.
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“I’ve heard all the stories! Do you think me and your father are old? Sure didn’t we do it in our day. Just be careful, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t be hanging around on your own and take it easy on the spirits and the shorts.”
Are You Going to your Lectures?
There is a reason every college student mutters “grand” when our parents ask us to elaborate on how our week in college was. We haven’t been to a thing all week but we’ve managed to make it out four nights and now we feel guilty about it so we’ll lie. What Mammy and Daddy don’t know won’t hurt them.
“You better be going to your lessons boy-o cause if I find out you’re skipping them you’ll be working with me out in the fields! We’re not made of money like those law-dee-daw lads you do be hanging around with. Mother’s and Father’s sending them to college to do this, that and the other. No, you’ll be going once and if you fail, you better be out in the muck with me at 5 in the morning.”
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CARS
Mammy’s worry. We all know that. But Daddy’s worry on occasion too. And the biggest worry to parents these days are all of the accidents on the road.
“Don’t be getting into cars with any mad lads. Take the bus if you have to. And make sure no one’s speeding. Didn’t they tell ye in school that it wasn’t embarrassing to tell someone to slow down. I don’t want the guards to be calling here to my door telling me that you’re in the morgue”
Not Washing Them Clothes
As students, it’s our biggest crime. Bringing dirty clothes home to Mammy and dumping them beside the washing machine.
“Do you think I’m a machine? I don’t want to be standing at the washing machine for the whole weekend….. I don’t care that you don’t have a washing machine, go to the laundrette…..Ahh gway will ya, there’s a laundrette down the road. And look at the state of your football shorts. Covered in muck! I’m telling you now, I’ll wash this lot but if I see one more bag of washing coming in here on a Friday evening, I’ll go MAD.”
