I have a strong mom, and I feel blessed for it. Of course, there were times growing up when I wished she wouldn’t have been that way, but looking back, her strength as a parent has shaped me into the person that I am today. She always told us, “It’s a lot of hard work to be a good parent.” I didn’t know exactly what she meant until I had children of my own, but she’s right — being a good parent requires a lot of strength. She taught me many life lessons, and here are some of them.

12 Things Your Strong Mom Taught You

These are things that only people with a strong mom would understand.

1. Doing things for other people isn’t always the best thing.

If we needed more ketchup at dinner, it didn’t even dawn on my sisters or me to ask my mom to get it for us. She would have looked at us like we had three heads and said, “Are your feet broken?” She made me realize that the world does not revolve around me. I don’t expect people to serve me. Instead, she taught me to take personal responsibility for my life.