Ethical lessons from Mother

Flowers for Mom.
When I was five years old I would occasionally walk five blocks to visit my father at his grocery store.  On the way home I passed a home with a beautiful flower garden in the front year.The thought came that I should pick some of these flowers for my mother and proceeded to do so.  My mother was pleased but wanted to know where I gathered the flowers. I couldn't describe the place so I just said, "I picked them on the way home from town.

Several days later I again passed the home with the flowers and again picked  flowers for Mom.  This time, however mother received a telephone call from the flower-lady and she informed mother that I was picking some of her most choice flowers.  Mother explained to me that this was the same a stealing.  I never did that again.

The Current Topics Club.
My mother belonged to the Current Topics Club.  (Whenever mother mentioned the club I wondered why  a club would discuss, currants and other berries)

She was giving a dinner party for the ten or twelve lady members and had set a beautiful table .  At each plate was a little, fancy, paper cup which contained some choice candy.  Mom was busy in the kitchen and I was inspecting the table in the dinning room.  The pieces of candy looked so delicious that I decided to sample one.  Yes. they were delicious and I sampled some more. Some of my friends were playing outside and I took some more of the candy for them to sample.  Before long there was not one piece of candy left in any of the little paper cups.

Mother didn't notice the absence of the candy until some time during the meal and it was too late to correct the situation..  After the party she let me know that she was not pleased with me.  She wondered what the ladies thought when they noticed an empty paper cup in front of each of their plates.  She strongly emphasized that I should not take property that belongs to someone else even if it was shared with friends.

Improper language.  
One time mother and dad had enjoying a Sunday afternoon ride.  I was in the back seat.  As dad was driving and talking to mom he kept taking his hands off the steering wheel and this was making me very nervous.  I finally blurted out, "Keep your damn hands on that wheel."  There was a stunned silence and then mother and dad broke into hilarious laughter.  I was pretty proud of myself.  I thought if that was so funny I would try it again. The second time the response was entirely different.  I received a lecture telling me that kind of language was not acceptable in our family.

I cannot remember either of my parents ever using bad language.  I must have learned all my swear words  from friends in the neighborhood.  In later years I realized that my neighborhood was located on the wrong side of the tracks.  I didn't realize this when I was young.