I so look forward to your blogs. Not a slice of life--a slice of your inimitable life.
You were raised the way most farm kids were raised when I was young. Everybody worked, but most of them weren't literate :)) The emphasis was on physical labor and getting the work done.
Can't say you and I share anything in this regard. My mother never asked us to do anything, though she was overburdened with chores herself. I won't catalog them here, but if I had her challenges I think I would have cleared out.
There has to be something right about having responsibility so young, because, if you are anything, you are a survivor. And you never complain.
Your mother sounds like a fine lady. You always speak of her with such affection.
In many ways, each generation has become softer, and less stoic than the one before. Hard times make hard men and all that. Without the self-reliance my upbringing demanded, I don't think I'd've managed to remain on the right side of sanity...if indeed that is where I am:)
Is sanity normative? I don't know. But I do know, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if more people were on your side of sanity 😇
Ha,ha,ha, me too! Everyone's pixelated except you and me..and of yourself I'm not so sure of late:)