Blind obedience is what I learned as a child. She made me, stamped me "Made in America," and left me her story to share.

Blind obedience is what I learned as a child and if I spoke out or spoke up, I'd be scolded or spanked and ignored for half the day. I had no time to sulk, never thought I deserved to, so I ended up keeping my emotions inside. That's all well and good, but unless you express how you feel, it's hard to determine how you feel. Self-expression is a form of defining and asserting who you are, and it has a very empowering effect.

My mother was a beautiful, proud and dignified woman who was a product of her up-bringing in the old South on a 240 acre farm with two parents and sixteen children. She learned the value of hard work, respect for self and others, education, and obedience to parents and elders. Her father warned her about men, especially fast ones from big cities, and most definitely against those who didn't attend church. She listened respectfully as her father spoke, one day left the farm and traveled west, where she met her husband, my father. 

After their divorce, she held us accountable for maintaining her father's proud legacy of high moral values and obedience and made sure we did everything she, herself, would have done in terms of keeping to tradition and keeping quiet when elders or superiors were talking. Each day, she left a strict plan of action and returned home with everything in place.

I was never my mother's favorite, but I was care-taker of her house, and she taught me everything she knew. She was quiet-spoken yet uncompromising. but she left me with gems of wisdom to last a lifetime. She made me laugh and she made me cry, but through it all, she made me, stamped me, "Made in America," and left me her story to share.

I knew my mother, but it took a while before I learned who I was because it was unacceptable to boast, self-express or complain. Being quiet and invisible never entered my mind because "Children were to be seen and not heard." It had always been that way and it was an established tradition in the South, especially in the Mississippi South. 

Although I didn't talk back, I loved to cry when I felt hurt. I felt like a disobedient child when I cried but it allowed me to process negative emotions, which will find a way to escape, as indeed they should.

But that was a generation ago and things have changed. Psychologists, mental health associations, researchers and educators emphasize the importance of self-expression for emotional growth. It's never too late to learn all you need to know about yourself. But self-knowledge begins with self-expression.