Washington and His Awkward Mother
George Washington reportedly cut down a cherry tree in his childhood, and was then unable to lie about it to his father. In reality, that incident never happened. It was invented out of whole cloth by Mason Locke Weems, one of Washington’s early biographers. However, the boy Washington’s relationship with his mother could yield some true, although less inspirational, tales. Mary Ball Washington was not monstrous. Indeed, she deserves credit for raising “The Father of His Country”. What made Mary Ball an iffy mother was a lifelong diet of passive-aggressiveness that she fed her son. As Washington put it, he grew up “ten times more afraid“ of Mary than anybody else he knew.
Washington’s mother made things awkward for him his entire life. During the Revolutionary War, she asked Virginia’s House of Delegates for money. That prompted her embarrassed son – a conscientious straight rod appalled at the idea of nepotism – to rush off a letter, urging the Assembly not to give his mom any money. That attempt to cash in on her son’s position paled in comparison to the fact that, even as Washington was leading the Patriots in their fight for independence, Mary was a vocal supporter of King George III. She stayed passive-aggressive to the end. When George became president in 1789 and dropped by to visit his mom, she did not celebrate, but instead told him that she was dying.