Happy & Healthy

FRIENDS, BE HAPPY WITH THAT ‘WHINING’ MOTHER

Mom, really. I love you. Read this just a little longer. But maybe you should click away now (now…) because sometimes you really can get the blood (too late…) under my nails. You are the ‘caring type of mother’ who sees danger/problem/atomic bomb in everything out of love that her offspring will crash down, and that's why I feel compelled to regularly tell you ‘mom, seriously, stop whining.’

It happens out of love, of course, but sometimes you just whine for the sake of whining. Now I regularly catch you on your exaggerated behavior when we go somewhere together (‘aren't you going to be late, Kiki? We have ten minutes, right? Will you make it? Kiki?’ ‘MOM STOP!’ and we can laugh about it together, but do you remember how it used to be? When I was a dragon of a thirteen-year-old and it was screaming every night? Because I wasn't allowed to have a tongue piercing, couldn't stand outside until 2 AM, and school didn't interest me at all? ’I have a whining mother,“ I said to all my friends back then. ”Trudy whines about everything.“

‘Aren't you going to be late? We have ten minutes, right? Will you make it?’

But it seems, mom, that I should thank you. (And if you also have a whining mom, go to her now to do the same). Research from the University of Essex shows that children with a ‘whining’ mother become more successful.

In the study, over fifteen thousand girls aged 13 and 14 were followed for about six years. What turned out? Girls with ‘whining mothers’ who had extra high expectations of them (‘make sure you are always financially independent from others, Kiki’) turned out to be more successful in life. Exactly that group of girls went to college or university more often and had a smaller chance of becoming a teenage mother. And last but not least: the kids of the whining moms seem to earn more later in life. So, uh, thanks Truudje. Love.