I wonder how many other old fashioned remedies, old wives tales, old family customs we still adhere to? A while ago when John burned himself and I told him to plunge his hand into ice water he said, “Can’t I just rub butter on it? My mother always used to do that.”
I replied that butter would be fine if he wanted to fry and egg on it. But it would do nothing to stop the burn from going on burning. So I’m interested in hearing from the other Reds about things they do because of their mothers or fathers. Things that have since been discredited or frowned upon. Or are completely and utterly wrong? Do they work anyway?
HALLIE EPHRON: I'm ordering a BGA on my next flight. Sounds better than a valium.
My mother always threw spilled salt over her shoulder. I know, just a superstition. And if I coughed or choked on something I had to raise my arms. And hold my breath and count to ten to stop the hiccups. And stay out of the water for an hour after eating lunch or I'd get a cramp and drown. All bunk, right? Putting ammonia on a bee sting does work, however.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: OOh. I can hear her voice every day. When cleaning the kitchen, you have to wipe off all horizontal surfaces. NEVER cut your own hair. The pictures in magazines are not what real people are supposed to look like. It doesn't matter what size it is, just so it fits. Hmm. But superstitions? Or remedies? Now I am realizing she didn't have any superstitions or remedies. Well, putting a potato in the soup soaks up the excess salt. but that actually works. But basically, her rules were more like "Never wear a color not found in nature."
My stepfather once looked at me like I was crazy when I put a hat on a bed. He said--take that hat off he bed! And I said--wow, are you superstitious? And he said: Of course not. But hats don't belong on beds.
JENN McKINLAY: Hallie, I absolutely remember my parents saying, "So big" when we were little kids and having us raise our arms up if we were choking. Not sure why we said, "So big" but I'm sure it made sense to them. The world has changed so much since I was a kid and both of my parents embraced the internet so the quirky home remedies, like baking soda paste on bug bites and stuff like that, have gone by the way side. Now, if something comes up my mom would respond with, "There has to be a better way. I'm going to Google that." Progress?
LUCY BURDETTE: Yes we did the salt thing too, and waiting a half hour after lunch before going into the ocean. I think Googling instead of listening to our mothers is a little sad though, right? Though the main advice I remember from my mom was: "Don't lie down on a blanket with a boy."
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, your mom's advice was probably the best:-) My mom was not superstitious, no throwing salt or avoiding ladders, etc. But she was big on wearing neutrals (maybe they are colors found in nature??) and believed that you should only paint walls white, because it went with everything. Neither of those things stuck. Her hiccup remedy, however, I still swear by. You have someone hold your ears closed while you drink as much water as you can manage without taking a breath. Never fails!
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Lucy, my mother's version of the blanket was, "The best form of birth control is an aspirin, held tightly between your knees." Not advice I passed down to my kids. On the other hand, baking soda paste for a bee sting really does work! I always made it for my kids.I doubt it "draws out the sting" but it definitely soothes the area. For most home remedies, I think of my grandmother, who always had a small bottle of blackberry brandy for medicinal purposes and used to rub it on teething babies' gums. Must have been before Ambusol. My mother believed in fresh air daily for children, that "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels," and that a little Coca Cola was the best thing for an upset stomach. Can you tell she spent a meaningful portion of her adult life in the south?
RHYS: I must remember the hiccup advise, Debs. And I also got the advice to stay out of the water for half an hour or you'll get cramps and drown!
What sort of things did your mothers tell you? Are they still relevant? Do they work?
I love reading family customs and old-fashioned remedies.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother had many strange-sounding remedies that actually worked. She’d put a bit of vinegar in a glass of water and sip it to settle an upset stomach. [My mom hated the taste, but agreed that it worked.]
But my grandmother’s favorite one was putting black pepper on a cut to stop the bleeding. Now, in all honesty, I never, ever questioned my grandmother and when she said to do something, I did it. So I’ve had black pepper liberally poured over many a kitchen cut [no, it doesn’t hurt a bit and, yes, it definitely stops the bleeding] and, as my grandmother promised, not one of those cuts ever got infected. I just slap a Band-Aid over it and leave it for a day or two.
I have absolutely no idea why it works, but it most definitely does . . . .
I definitely remember not being able to swim for half an hour after lunch. That was always such a long 30 minutes. Longest of the day.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember any other remedies/advice/etc.
Definitely the prohibition against swimming after eating. But people, the arms straight in the air when you're choking or coughing badly really does work. It straightens the trachea so you get more air. My mother was a sensible woman, so no superstitions that I remember. But I learned as a child (from other kids, likely), "Step on a line, break your mother's spine. Step on a crack, break your mother's back." My mom has been gone seven years now, and I'm still very careful to avoid stepping on lines and cracks when I'm out walking (which I do every day for my exercise)! And I'm always wary of walking under ladders.
ReplyDeleteMommy never would have mentioned things about boys and blankets or aspirin between the legs (my household was loving and supportive but a bit puritanical), but her practical admonition to shut the kitchen drawer after you've taken something out has saved me hours of cleaning up flour or coffee from my drawers.
My mother's "what nice girls don't do" list would run to several pages. After a bath or shower to make sure all the Atlanta fire ants were off a child's body (between the toes!), I would apply a baking soda paste. Ditto yellow jacket stings. Coca cola for upset stomachs and morning sickness. And no swimming for 30 minutes after eating.
ReplyDeleteMy doctor actually told me to use that baking soda paste on fire ant bites, Margaret. The logic is that the irritant from the ant bite is formic acid, which the baking soda neutralizes. It works for me.
DeleteMy mom mixed the baking soda with apple cider vinegar for wasp stings and ant bites. Seemed to work!
DeleteWe had to wait one hour before swimming. As Mark says, it was very long.
ReplyDeleteWhat I took from my mother and do again is: use alcool to break a fever or to kill germs on cuts or such.
I did it for my family and myself and it worked even if I have learned later that it was not a good idea ( don't remember why).
About turning to google for abvice, my pharmacist says that it is not always wise because plenty of sources there are unreliable.
Ditto on waiting 30 minutes after eating, and baking soda on stings. Once, though, when visiting grandparents, I stepped on a yellow jacket in my bare feet. My grandfather got one of his Camel cigarettes out and broke it, put the tobacco in his hand, added a little spit, and plastered that on the bottom of my foot. It worked. Meat tenderizer also works (is that only a thing in the south, or because not so many people smoke anymore?).
ReplyDeleteLet's see... like everyone else, there was the half hour wait after eating before swimming. And I was always served hot tea and dry toast for an upset stomach. Not that revolutionary, I realize, but what made it unique was that my mother absolutely hated tea and wouldn't drink it in any other context.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is an absolute believer in a "hot toddy" for a winter cold. I'm not sure what's in a real hot toddy, but ours is basically normal hot tea with a generous amount of honey and lemon plus a shot of whiskey. I don't know if it has any real medicinal value, but I'll swear it makes me feel a bit better.
Oh, and Rhys? I guarantee that if some horrible shocking news is delivered at our house, the brandy is coming out. It's not only helpful, it just feels so civilized!
Oh, we did the butter on burns thing. No wait, that was my grandmother. My mother the nurse was horrified. And the "no swimming" and the hold your breath to cure the hiccups (that totally works, though).
ReplyDeleteI can't remember anything else. When your mother is a nurse it really cuts down on "home" remedies in favor of science.
The one superstition that I follow to this day is my grandmother's "no washing on New Year's day because you'll wash someone out of your family." I make the family finish their laundry the day before. Drives them nuts.
No laundry on New Years' Day?! Now THAT'S a new one on me.
DeleteAnd I don't remember where it comes from, either. Must be something my grandmother got from her mother. She's the only person I know who followed that superstition.
DeleteMy mom swore by an abbreviated hot toddy for coughs and chest colds--a teaspoonful of whiskey and lemon with black pepper! Extremely yuck to me as a child--can't abide even the smell of whiskey as a grown-up. Also the butter on a burn, baking soda for stings, and stay out of the water for an hour after eating.
ReplyDeleteMy mother made us gargle a hot salt water and vinegar concoction for a sore throat. Nasty.
DeleteBacon grease was my grandmother's go-to remedy. She always had a pot of bacon grease on her stove, and she'd dab it on anything in the realm of minor burns, cuts and scrapes, and mosquito bites. Many years after Grandma had gone, I learned from an old-time country doctor that bacon grease was also a moderately effective spermicide, and could be used as a form of birth control. "But," he warned me, "You can't use Crisco!" Gave me a whole new perspective on that pot of bacon grease on my grandma's stove.
ReplyDeleteOne popular folk remedy that definitely does not work is to bathe your dog in tomato juice if it gets skunked. In reality, it just makes your dog smell like really bad lasagna. Skunk spray is acid, so go for the baking soda, peroxide, and shampoo remedy instead.
That's pretty funny about the bacon grease, Gigi! My mother-in-law always kept some on the back of her stove, too, since she cooked with bacon pretty much every day.
Delete"The bacon grease cure!" Reminds me of that movie My Greek Wedding where the father uses Windex as his cure-all.
DeleteI actually tried Windex, Hallie, just to see. I suspect the ammonia does cure some things, and I loved that running gag in the movie.
DeleteI can attest to that, Gigi. My daughter's dog got skunked at my house. My son in law and I stood together in the bath, with the dog, drenching it in tomato juice. The dog didn't like it and shook violently. It looked like the scene from Psycho! And sil and I were plastered with juice. And the dog still smelled.
DeleteOh, yes, Gigi, the bacon grease on the back of the stove!! Maybe that's why there was ten years between my brother and me, lol.
DeleteRhys, I used to have a dog who would never back down when he was attacked. One night he cornered a skunk, and must have gotten at least a dozen blasts before I finally got him to come away. I tried ALL the folk remedies, and none of them worked until I called my vet and threatened to bring the dog into his office unless he gave me a home cure that worked. That's when I learned about a pint of peroxide (to penetrate the fur), plus a half cup of baking soda (to neutralize the acid) plus a tablespoon of shampoo (to wash the whole mess out again). Wet the dog thoroughly, spray the mixture all over, let it work for a minute or so, then wash it out. We had to do it twice to my knotheaded dog, but it worked like a charm.
DeleteTomato juice doesn't work??? Oh, that is GOOD to know!
DeleteSo funny, that many of us had shared childhood memories, from all over. I guess moms are universal.
ReplyDeleteMy mother had all kinds of ideas, some sound, and some, er, otherwise. She wouldn't let us eat anything that fell on the tabletop because "you'll get worms". As if her constant cleaning would allow any such critter in our home. We had Coke for upset stomachs, sometimes with paregoric added, but that was the real Coke, the kind with cane sugar. I doubt today's corn syrup variety would do it.
My dad also had some interesting ideas. If we had earaches, he would blow cigar smoke gently into our ears. It was soothing, plus individual attention from my dad always made me feel better, regardless. As a young man he worked at his uncle's butcher shop, and he always said cobwebs were the best thing for cuts. They are sterile, for one thing.
Susan, I've turned out to be the mom who recommends hot toddies for colds!
I'm a believer, too! And my dad also used to blow smoke in our ears for an earache. I figure it soothed because of the warmth.
DeleteRecipes for hot toddies, anyone?
ReplyDelete(For me its hot water, lemon juice, and honey. I know it's supposed to have some kind of liquor but it works without, too.)
Yep, plus bourbon.
DeleteI use half as much bourbon as hot water, and half as much lemon juice (fresh is best, but bottled works, too) as water, and half as much honey as lemon juice.
At Bouchercon in NOLA I got the crud, and went down to the bar to get one to take to my room. They gave me four lemon wedges with it! It was great, and I slept like a baby.
That really works, alcohol or not. Amazing.
DeleteLet me see.
ReplyDeleteThere was the vinegar rinse after shampooing, so your hair would be squeaky clean. Or lemon juice in the summer, to aid blonding.
Baby oil and iodine for tanning.
Step on a crack and break your mothers back. Step in a hole and break her sugar bowl. Like Edith, I avoid these still.
Wet tobacco on bee stings and smoke blown in ear for earache, check.
If you shave your legs, you will make the hair come back darker, coarser and heavier. (Makes me wonder about all the parts these young women are shaving now.)
Avoid having a summer baby if possible, as summer babies sicken. I had two in July, so, so much for that.
Never eat uncooked flour or you'll get worms.
Castor oil cures all ailments. Cod liver oil prevents all ailments.
Unguentine for burns, Mercurochrome or Iodine for cuts, Noxzema for acne, and nothing works for cramps except menopause, so get over it.
And I wore white high top shoes from my first step until I started to school. Laces washed and shoes polished daily during my nap.
Outgrown clothing went into a box, Bundles for Britain. I still weep over that little blue bonnet with the rabbit fur trim. I hope Rhys got it.
I want to see Rhys in that hat!
DeleteOh, I had forgotten all about mercurochrome! I remember being at summer camp and having a sore throat. The camp nurse swabbed my throat with it! I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be ingested. It was awful.
DeleteYour mention of Mercurochrome reminded me of a favorite story of my mother's from before my birth. My three older siblings had been out playing and came running in together, saying Don had cut his arm. She said she told him to come to the sink and she pulled out her Mercurochrome. He held out his arm and it was cut open all the way to the bone! Apparently, there are few blood vessels on the inside of the upper arm, thus there was very little blood, so she was expecting a tiny cut. I heard that story many times and she always ended with, "I never felt like such a fool, looking there at his arm open to the bone and there I stood with my bottle of Mercurochrome."
ReplyDeleteMy mother never had a dramatic incident like that, but she had a similar faith in the cure-all properties of a concoction called Campho-Phenique. She would put it on everything.
DeleteSorry I haven't been able to comment for a while. Google blocked my sign-in from Europe and would only clear me if they sent me a text, which they couldn't do as my English phone is a simple flip that won't accept texts. Ugghh. But I think now I've convince them that I'm me.... we'll see
ReplyDeleteIt is a family joke that if anyone ever writes a biography of our mother, the title will be "Breathe Deeply and Gargle With Warm Salt Water."
ReplyDeleteAll true!
DeleteMy parents were totally and completely NON-superstitious and laughed when we told them about things we had seen people do! One or the other would say “I hope you don’t believe that!” But they did make us stay out of the water for a certain amount of time after eating. It’s what they were taught when they learned to swim: Mom, at Girl Scout Camp, and Dad, at the Y.
ReplyDeleteThey never used castor oil or iodine with us because they hated it so much as kids!
I have a hiccup cure that I learned from a college roommate. It’s bizarre but I have never known it to fail. I haven’t used it on anyone since I was in college but I successfully used it on my Dad (once) and one of my sisters (twice) and a coworker from a summer job (once). I have no idea why it works. Personally. I think my roommate made it up as she went along! She put a large brown shopping bag over the sufferer’s head (another of our roommates) , gave her a tall glass of water to drink under the bag, and while the hiccup sufferer was drinking the water (“drink it straight down without stopping”) she gently tapped the girl on the head, on top of the bag, with a soup spoon! I’m sure she made it up! I tnink it’s the surprise factor that makes it work. Each time I did it on someone I had no faith whatsoever that it would work, but it did! Even when I used it on my sister for the second time! (And now let us never speak of it:-)
DebRo
I never heard of using Coke for upset stomachs! My mom was a firm believer in 7-Up and Saltine crackers, then chicken noodle soup when you were up to it. So of course, to this day the taste of 7-Up makes me feel queasy. Also, gargling with warm salt water for a sore throat, and that one does actually help.
ReplyDeleteRhys, the photo you used made me think of my mom's insistence of dressing up for plane flights--remember when people used to do that?
I think everyone had to sit out after eating for 30 minutes to an hour before we could resume swimming. Personally I think a parent made that up so he/she could nap and not have to watch the kids! My mom swore by Coke and saltines if you were nauseated; ginger ale if Coke wasn't available. A bath with baking soda for itching. Baking soda paste for stings. My husband swears by using tobacco on stings. My mom swore redheads could not wear certain colors like pink. I proved her wrong. She also said girls do not call boys on the phone. Girls wait for the boys to call them. I like a hot toddy for colds, etc. I use Irish whiskey usually.
ReplyDeleteJust remembered another one. If you swallow a fish bone eat a piece of bread. I do remember Mom doing this one!
ReplyDeleteMy mother in law had heard that someone was struck by lightening while playing an electric guitar. She, therefore, was convinced my husband shouldn't play his acoustic guitar in any rain storm.
ReplyDeletePat D, yes to the tobacco. My mom would break one of her cigarettes for the tobacco.
And vinegar for itchy bites. You smell like a salad or Easter eggs, but the itch goes away.
We weren't allowed to shower or bathe during a thunderstorm because Mom heard once that someone was electrocuted when lightning struck the house while they were in the tub.
DeleteRhys, I'll try the BGA the next time I fly.
ReplyDeleteDiana
When I was very small, Mom got coke syrup for us when we were sick but it was ginger ale and tea later. I think the half hour after eating before swimming was gospel everywhere. When I brought shoes home, Mom said not to put them on the table. I still don't put my slippers there when I sort my wash on the table. Sometimes I wonder when people have been doing things for many years, and all of a sudden, they're wrong. Especially when the powers that be change back again.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid swimming and yelling, I remember my mom telling me not to yell because it hurt other people's ears!
ReplyDeleteDo not chew with your mouth open. Always be clean. Always wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident.
Hot Toddy - my way: lemon or orange herbal tea (no caffeine), good squeeze of lemon or orange juice, spoonful of honey and two spoonfuls of brandy or some other liquor.
ReplyDeleteVick's Vapor Rub for cough and congestion with Dad's T-shirt on over it.
7Up family, like Debbie. Soda crackers, plain food, Cream of Wheat, plain jello. Chicken noodle soup.
Lukewarm shower after being exposed to poison oak with PhelsNapa (which I know I can't spell) soap.
Yup, we had that bacon canister, no swimming after eating.
Don't sit so close to the TV, it will damage your eyes.
Black Sunday school shoes from Labor Day to Easter, then white shoes.
Don't wear underwear with holes in case you are in an accident and end up in a hospital.
Always wear a sweater because Mom or Grandma got cold.
No talking on the phone, bathing or going near any electronics during a thunderstorm. And she would CALL me to remind me of this. Every time! And I would sign off with, "well, I'm going to go take my bath now..." just to wind her up. She also told us not to wear underwear with holes in it, but she was an ER nurse, so we figured she saw a lot of people come in with holey underwear (and probably no underwear, unfortunately). Bitters in soda water to help get a good burp out helped with an upset stomach (usually).
ReplyDeleteIf I phoned my mother during a thunderstorm, she wouldn't talk for fear she'd be electrocuted. But here's the big one--one no one has mentioned (for good reason). My mother believed that if you accidentally ate eggshells in your deviled eggs or scrambled eggs, or whatever, you would get appendicitis. I kid you not!
ReplyDeleteRhys, I love ginger ale and I love brandy. What could be a better combo?