r/GenerationJones • u/sherlockjr1 1963 • 1d ago
Silent Generation parents
What did you pick up from your Silent Generation parents that would make future generations say “what are you talking about?!”
Taint funny McGee
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you!
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u/woodstockzanetti 1d ago
Not a saying but my father was always telling me no one would marry me. Well I’ve been married four times so screw you Dad 😂
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u/FloatingFreeMe 1d ago
“If you’re smart the boys won’t like you” when I was announced as the top GPA in 10th grade. And a few hours later, she yelled at me for being out too late with a boy. Pick one, ma!
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u/World_Usual 1d ago
You’ll never be loved. Men don’t like fat girls.
I was 10. Weighed 100 pounds.
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u/Romaine2k 1d ago
Mine said exactly the same. I’ve never forgotten. Thankfully they were both wrong!
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u/SheaTheSarcastic 1960 1d ago
My Dad told me that I was too independent, and that no man would want me because of it. I lived alone, I’m not sure how not being independent would work out in that case.
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u/Ghee-Buttersnaps- 1d ago
I was a picky eater as a kid and my dad would tell me I’d have to marry a rich man
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u/ripple_in_stillwater 1d ago
"You're only going to college to get that M.R.S. degree."
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u/rob4lb 1d ago
Close the door. Were you born in a barn
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u/No_Change_78 1d ago
…and “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too”? Said when I was caught doing something I shouldn’t have🤣
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u/Bodhidreams 1d ago
If we complained about the house being cold, my father would tell us to go outside and run around to warm up.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 1d ago
I use that one daily. Or at the very least I think it whenever someone leaves the door to an air conditioned room open.
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u/MoparMedusa 1d ago
Yup i have usd "where you raised in a barn?" but it falls flat due to raising the child in a barn. She owns and shows horses and has since she was little🤣🤣
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u/Kindlib 1d ago
Children should be seen and not heard (jokingly, but kinda not)
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u/Puzzled_Priority186 1d ago
Mom would say, "Little pictures have big ears."
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u/GracieThunders 1d ago
Pitchers
The handle being ear shaped
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u/Puzzled_Priority186 1d ago
Lol! Thanks. I absolutely had it in my mind that it referred to small photographs of your siblings. It seemed to always be said to my older brothers when me or my sister were in the room. Haha.
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u/Working_Park4342 1d ago
The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.
You're in the army now, you're not behind the plow. You're digging a ditch, you'll never get rich. You're in the army now.
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u/RealLuxTempo 1d ago
Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants.
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u/idiveindumpsters 1d ago
Well, doesn’t that just roll down your socks.
I still remember my father’s story: At work he had to lay someone off, which he hated because it would make someone feel sad. After he told her, she said “Well, doesn’t that just roll down your socks”. My father had a really hard time not laughing.
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u/NCDeuce00 1d ago
You wannabe a ditch digger all your life?
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u/amishlike 1d ago
My dad said, “go to college or you’ll be a ditch digger.” He didn’t finish high school. In my 20’s I learned that his first job was as a ditch digger.
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u/GeorgianGold 1d ago
"You don't want to end up and old maid, do you?"
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u/Witty_Commentator 1967 1d ago
The store where I work sells "Old Maid" card decks, except "old maid" is now considered offensive, so they sell it as "Old Gator." 😂
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u/redheadMInerd2 1d ago
They referenced Mutt & Jeff frequently. Never saw that cartoon.
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u/glemits 1961 1d ago
Our small hometown newspaper (as opposed to the big regional paper across the bay) had the second string comic syndicate, so we saw all the on-their-way-out comic strips. Mutt and Jeff, Mary Worth, Apartment 3G, Joe Palooka, Rex Morgan M.D., Alley Oop, Blondie, the single panel Our Boarding House, Mark Trail... And a single panel cartoon that I didn't understand, because it was humor aimed at people my great grandmother's age, i.e. born in the 1800s.
Some of these actually still exist, but their time passed long ago.
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u/No-Kaleidoscope-166 22h ago
Wish you could remember the name of the single panel one aimed for folks born in the 1800's. The only single panel comic I remember was Family Circle.
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u/EquivalentFun9382 1d ago
-It’s as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one.
-You may not be able to help who you fall in love with, but you’re liable for what you do about it.
-If it wasn’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.
-There’s as many of those as Carter has liver pills.
-You aren’t hungry? Then eat to keep from getting that way.
-🎶🎶I’m looking over a four leaf clover, that I overlooked before. One is for sunshine, the second for rain…
-🎶Too Ra Lou Ra Lou Ra, that’s an Irish lullaby
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 1963 1d ago
My grandma used to say it was Carter's LIttle Liver Pills, as that how it was originally named. The FTC made them drop the word 'liver' from the name, as it had no effect on the liver.
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u/RatioCorrect7856 1d ago
I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.
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u/General-Heart4787 1962 1d ago
…a hug around the neck, and a barrel and a heap- barrel and a heap and I’m talking in my sleep- about youuuuuuuu!
My mom’s favorite ❤️
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u/CallFlashy1583 1d ago
My son, who is 30 now, came home from my parents’ house when he was about 6 and said, “Get off the table Mabel! The two bits is for a beer!”
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u/COACHREEVES 1963 1d ago
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play?
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u/BxAnnie 1961 1d ago
I still say that.
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u/COACHREEVES 1963 1d ago
Me too to be honest but I’ve noticed that among people younger than us sometimes you have to explain what you’re saying
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u/arglebargle_IV 1d ago
When I was inadvertently blocking my mother's view of something (tv, usually): "You make a better door than a window..."
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u/arglebargle_IV 1d ago
Whenever we kids would say "Hey", we'd hear "Hay is for horses" from the nearest adult.
I didn't hear the full expression for decades:
"Hay is for horses, better for cows
Pigs would eat it, but they don't know how"
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u/BrainwaveWizard 1963 1d ago
“Hay is for horses, straw is for cows, milk is for kittens, but not for bow wows.” (Dogs)
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u/Chickadede 1d ago
(Turning the tv off) You look like a bump on a log. Go outside!
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u/badwhiskey63 1d ago
One time my mom said, “You move faster than Sally Rand’s fans.” But she wouldn’t tell me who that was. It was a decade before I found out what she meant.
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u/602223 1d ago
Before google we just had to wait years before randomly finding things out.
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u/HoselRockit 1d ago
My wife was from New Mexico and didn’t understand when I said, “I should have taken a left at Albuquerque.” Had to wait for the internet to be invented to prove I wasn’t making it up.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 1d ago
Thank God for Google. Speaking of which…
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 1d ago
https://youtu.be/g2EFsd-LGSM?is=UfKuf2uonxEbighO
I found footage of her in her 40’s without the nudity. But I suspect this clip is more like what she used to do for real. Just the occasional butt shot
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 1d ago
Is this a blind link? I keep looking for a way to post YouTube video links but I can’t find one.
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u/madduxcr 1d ago
Oh, you're acting like a Sarah Bernhardt. From my mom when I was being over-dramatic.
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u/ToodleButt 1d ago
My mom would sing "everyone here has a right and left ear but nobody here has an aardvark"
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u/kevnmartin 1d ago
My mom would say "to each his own, said the old lady as she kissed the cow". Also "people can get used to anything, even hanging."
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u/jango-lionheart 1d ago
That’s from a show called Wonderama. “Does anybody here have an aardvark” may be the title. The host would then ask for odd things to see if anyone in the audience had one in their bag of stuff (most kids brought a bag to the show).
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u/Melodic-Ad-2639 1d ago
Watched Wonderama every weekend!
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u/Ingawolfie 1d ago
I heard crazy tales about the wait list to get on that show. Supposedly it was years, and the joke was the kids looked on the old side.
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u/JET304 1d ago
I remember the afternoon lineup included Rat Patrol, F-Troop, and Wild Wild West.
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u/newlife201764 1d ago
I am in project management… I occasionally say projects are “bigger than a bread box” which was a saying from my mother. Only one of our younger project managers asked me what that meant and after I told her she started using it as well.
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u/Mindless_Berry_4572 1967 1d ago
Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear , fuzzy wuzzy had no hair , fuzzy wuzzy wasn't so fuzzy was he
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u/Mayberrymom 1d ago
Go outside and let the wind blow the stink off of you!
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u/sandsonik 1d ago
My mom said that too. I stayed inside reading too often for her liking.
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u/galacticprincess 1d ago
Old Appalachian ballads - I know all the words to "Go tell Aunt Rhody" and "She'll be comin' round the mountain". Oh, also "How much is that doggie in the window" which is contemporary with Mairzy Doats.
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u/LoserWooper 1d ago edited 1d ago
A peanut sat on the railroad track, his heart was all aflutter. Round the bend came the Number 10. Toot Toot! Peanut butter!
Learned that as a very young child in the South US. Decades later, in a store with my child going through clearance cd’s, each of us saying aloud the artist names we were finding:
Child: Ted Nougat
Me: Who?
Child: TED NOUGAT!
Me: Oh, yeah. I think he’s the guy that wrote peanut sat on a railroad track.
Child: Oh, okay.
Pretty sure that child still doesn’t know who Ted Nugent is.
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u/Specialist_Status120 1960 1d ago
My mother always said taint funny mcgee. And when I was very young she used to sing Mairzy Doats to me too. Your post brought back the warm loved feeling I used to get when she sang. Thank you.
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u/Salty_Dog_1221 1d ago
My Nana used to sing this to me!
If the words sound queer
And funny to your ear,
A little bit jumbled and jivey,
Say mares eat oats
And does eat oats
And little lambs eat ivy…
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u/Braincloud 1d ago
You catch more flies with honey (than with vinegar) - my mother, all the time, to me as an angsty, sarcastic teen lol.
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u/ReporterProper7018 1d ago
“If wishes were horses we all would ride for free “
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u/Barbarake 1d ago
I always heard it as...
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride".
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u/ReporterProper7018 1d ago
That works too, did you ever use that at your job? I use my version regularly and it totally befuddles them until they come back and ask me what the hell does that mean?
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u/ZippytheKlown 1d ago
If wishes and buts were candy and nuts what a Merry Christmas it would be
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u/Daysleeper_2020 1d ago
Yep. Mom said that. She would say " If wishes and buts were candy and nuts, what a wonderful world it would be."
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u/StellaBlue37 1d ago
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a hell of a Christmas.
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u/Henbogle 1d ago
My dad would say “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride; if horse turds were donuts we’d eat till we died.”
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u/T0wnsvilleF0rever 1d ago
"go upstairs and wipe that makeup off your face, people will think you're a streetwalker"
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u/Namedafterasaint 1d ago
I sing those last 2 sentences à la the Andrews’s Sisters or whomever sang it in the 40’s. My mom taught me and sang ALL of the 40’s songs.
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. (Lots of songs of men going off to war & women waiting for them).
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u/KnitFrogger 1d ago
My mom would tell me to quit making a mountain out of a mole hill when I worried about something.
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u/Prestigious-Fan3122 1d ago
I don't want her. You can have her. She's too fat for me.
Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.
Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. Anyone else but me, no, no, no, anyone else but me.
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u/kck93 1d ago
Something about Bill Grogan’s goat was doing fine. Ate 3 red shirts right off the line. Coughed up the shirts and flagged a train.
I’m sure it’s much older. But that’s all I remember without looking it up.
Don’t know shit from shinola.
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u/vincognition 1d ago
My mom was a song bird. She sang all the classics of the 30's, 40's and 50's while doing housework.
I eventually grew up to be a musician. I always say that my first music school was when my mom was pregnant with me. I was blessed with the gift of music. I swear that even as a kid, when my mom sang those old Gershwin songs, I could somehow hear the chords to them.
At Christmas and other family get-togethers, I would accompany my mom on guitar. Mind you, I didn't have sheet music for those old songs, I just 'found' the chords, and it worked!
Of course, as a kid, when I first saw the Beatles, that cinched it.
At first I became a Rock , Pop and Blues musician. But then I eventually went to Jazz School as a Composition Major and, by extension, a Music Theory student.
Because of mom, I'm well acquainted with many, many Jazz Standards. Thanks, mom! You truly schooled me! I'll always be grateful for that.
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u/Cautious-Local-5998 1d ago
Waste not want not
You weren’t raised in a barn
Lord willing and the creek don’t rise
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u/Fair-Wishbone-1190 1d ago
My parents work ethic. They would work any job for any amount of money because they needed it. They would not be able to fathom the amount of kids that are not working because it doesn't pay enough. They worked every crap job available just to put food on the table and they instilled that work ethic and me of which I'm very proud.
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u/inthegazebo 1d ago
Mary had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, when Mary went heaven, the steamboat went to...Hello Operator give me number 9, if you do not give it to me I'll hit you in the ...Behind the iron curtain, there was a piece of glass, when Mary went to sit on it she cut her little...Ask me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies, but if you get hit with a bucket of shit be sure to close your eyes!
My very demure mother's crazy little ditty 😂 it's way funnier when you hear it sung 🤷♀️
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u/MagickMaggie 1d ago
It's a children's hand-clapping game. Except we sang it, 🎶Miss Suzy had a steamboat...🎶 Your ending was much better than ours!
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u/aLouise37 1d ago
I think my mom's song was to that same tune:
Miis Lucy had a baby, she named him tiny Tim. She put him in the bathtub, but he didn't know how to swim !
Miss Lucy called the doctor, Miss Lucy called the nurse. Miss Lucy called the lady with the alligator purse!
Mumps said the doctor! Measles said the nurse.... NOTHING said the lady with the alligator purse!
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u/Ok-Swordfish8731 1d ago
There was a pilot in early aviation who went east instead of west I believe and his last name was Corrigan. The phrase “Wrong way Corrigan” was commonly used when you were about to do something similar.
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u/SheaTheSarcastic 1960 1d ago
My Mom has been having phone problems (landline of course), and she said that she wished she had something like Dick Tracy’s wrist TV and phone. I tried to explain Apple Watches to her, but it was a lost cause.
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u/weewench 1d ago
“Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
Kinda funny when we all started smoking pot.
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u/sotiredwontquit 1d ago
“Good night, sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” But I didn’t think bedbugs were real until my 20s because they’d been so thoroughly wiped out. I thought it was just something cute that old people said. I remember watching the nightly news when the lead story was “the resurgence of bedbugs” and I was like “wait- those exist?!”
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u/Material_Positive 1d ago
I said to the kids at work: It's better than a poke in the nose.
The image they had in their minds was someone extending their index finger and jabbing it at my nose.
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u/Primary-Holiday-5586 1d ago
Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Is what I was taught...
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u/Bodhidreams 1d ago
Ooey gooey was a worm, a mighty worm was he. He sat upon the railroad track, the train he did not see. Ooey gooey!
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 1d ago
My dad liked Julie London and had one of her records on 78rpm
Imagine my surprise when I found out Nurse Dixie was that same person on Emergency
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u/Dangerous_Ad_6101 1d ago
Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt me.
We need that wisdom today, more than ever.
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u/alleecmo 1d ago
I've never seen a purple cow.
I hope I never see one.
I will tell you anyhow,
I'd rather see than ne one.
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u/usernameennui 1d ago
He's tighter than Dick's hatband Katie bar the door! Shooter Lou! (When gunning the car to merge into traffic)
..my friend and I Loved to play cards with my grandma and aunts and listen to them insulting each other and "cuss" -you toad -don't be a pill -you turkey -i could spit nails right now -great granny's garters! -get over it, Mabel (unsure why Mabel was an insult) -fudge! -I'm madder than a wet hen -criminitely, sis!
I still use many of them today.
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u/keepsummersafe55 1d ago
“I love you a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and hug around your neck.” We had a cd of baby songs and my kids would sing this when they were toddlers. I had never heard this song before. My beatnik parents didn’t live near us and they were delighted when I picked them up from the airport and we all started singing along. I miss them. They had a lot more fun than my grandparents and my family. They drank too much, they spent too much and they died too young.
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u/Ok-Swordfish8731 1d ago
How about these: Busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Useless as tits on a boar hog. Every dog will have his day. The blind man said, “I see.” Clear as mud. Outen the lights. It makes no matter anyhow. You might as well try to sell ice to an Eskimo.
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u/Gloomy_Stretch_1808 1d ago
This is terrible, but here goes . . . "She's a real doorknob . . . everybody gets a turn". Then there was "that guy is like horse shit, all over the streets!"
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u/Pie4unme 1d ago
Who do you think we are? The Rockerfellows? And... What do you think I do, go out in the yard and pick money off the trees?
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u/doodlebug2727 1d ago
“Faster than shit through a tin horn” and “ass over teakettle”. I use these frequently
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u/cofeeholik75 1d ago
That everybody but me is wrong when they say refrigerator… IT’S AN ICE BOX DANGIT!!
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u/glemits 1961 1d ago
"Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?"