“Suck it up.” Barbara Templin
When you are one of a half dozen or more farm kids, there isn’t a lot of sympathy for mild scrapes or emotional whining. There is too much that needs to be done. Hence my mom’s favorite phrase, one I heard her utter to each of her children and grandchildren from the time that they could walk. Because yeah the scraped knee might hurt a little but it wasn’t bleeding or broken.
Suck it up.
Oh, you failed the class? Why? You didn’t do the work?! Oh, suck it up.
Hungover and your head hurts? Suck it up.
You don’t want to have that difficult discussion with your boss or significant other? Suck it up.
You didn’t sleep last night because your kids were puking all night? Probably happened a dozen times a year for almost two decades for my mom. Suck it up, that’s why coffee exists.
Yes, there are traumatic things that happen but you can either sit there and cry like a baby or stand up, dust yourself off, and do what you need to do to rectify the situation. When my mom was in the last stages of the cancer that took her life I complained about having to take one of my kids to the gazillion activities they had that day. “Suck it up, buttercup. It’s good for them and so you’ll do it.” She was emaciated and weak from the chemo but the farmgirl spirit was still strong and just like getting the hay in before the rains come, she reminded me I just had to do what I needed to do to take care of those I loved.
Suck it up.