From savage one-liners to embarrassing yet hilarious public scenes, these funny mom stories prove no one keeps it real like Mom
22 Funny Mom Stories That Prove Mother Always Knows Best
Updated on May 28, 2025
“I Know CPR!”
My mother had just finished taking a CPR class at a local college when she and I were in the mall and saw a big crowd gathered around a still body. Mom took off running at a speed I didn’t know she could muster, yelling, “Everyone back! I know CPR!” Just as she threw herself next to the body and was about to begin, a pair of strong hands pulled her to her feet. “Ma’am,” said a police officer beside her, “we are trying to arrest this man.”
—Talea Torres
Weight loss contest
Mother and I were discussing our mutual weight problem one evening when I challenged her to a contest: If I lost the most weight in the next month, I wouldn’t have to pay her the $6 that I owed her. If she lost the most weight, I would have to pay up. “All right,” Mom agreed, “but let’s wait two weeks before we start. There are some things I have to eat first.”
—Irene Lane
Age is just a (made-up) number
My friend Emily and her mother bumped into an old family acquaintance on the street. “Is this your daughter?” the woman asked. “I remember her when she was this high! How old is she now?” Without pausing, Emily’s mom said, “24.” Emily, 35, nearly fainted on the spot. When the woman left, Emily asked her mom why she told such a whopper. “Emily,” her mother replied, “I’ve been lying about my age for so long, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d have to start lying about yours too.”
—Robert Lee Whitmire
Time for Botox
“Keep making that face, and it’s going to freeze that way,” was what my mother used to say to us as kids. I knew times had changed recently when she caught my sister scowling and warned, “Keep making that face, and you’re going to need Botox.”
—Mary Bouck
DIY drama
Mom had a small decorative windmill in her yard. A storm broke one of the blades, causing the windmill to shake violently. Dad announced that he would “take care of it” and rebalanced the windmill by snapping off the opposing blade. Watching him, Mom remarked, “I hope I never break a leg.”
—Gerald Loffredo
A smoking gun
While rummaging through her attic, my friend Kathryn found an old shotgun. Unsure about how to dispose of it, she called her parents. “Take it to the police station,” her mother suggested. My friend agreed and was about to hang up when her mother added, “Oh, and Kathryn? Call first.”
—Karen Whedon
Meeting the daughter-in-law
My cousin was in love and wanted to introduce his bride-to-be to his hypercritical mother. But in order to get an unbiased opinion, he invited over three other female friends as well and didn’t tell his mom which one he intended to marry. After the four women left, he asked his mother, “Can you guess which one I want to marry?”
“The one with short hair.”
“Yes! How’d you know?”
“Because that’s the one I didn’t like.”
—Fatima Farhat
Mom on gardening
I can’t tell the difference between a rose and a dandelion. So when it came time to fix up my garden, I had no clue which plants to keep and which ones to remove. Until, that is, my mother gave me this handy tip: “Pull them all up. If it comes back, it’s a weed.”
—Cy Coggins
An anti-smoking PSA
A couple of hours into a visit with my mother, she noticed I hadn’t lit up a cigarette once. “Are you trying to kick the habit?”
“No,” I replied, “I’ve got a cold, and I can’t smoke when I’m not feeling well.”
“You know,” she observed, “you’d probably live longer if you were sick more often.”
—Ian A. Hammel
Language barrier
Although I am of Chinese descent, I never really learned to speak Chinese. One evening, I came home boasting about a wonderful meal I’d had in Chinatown. I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant but wrote down the Chinese character on the door to show to my mother. “Do you know what it says?” Mom asked with a smile. “It says ‘Pull.’”
—Barbara Mao
Lots of love
“I’ll miss you, Great-Grandma,” wrote my mother’s great-grandson in an email before shipping out to Iraq. “I’ll miss you too, dear,” she responded. “Stay safe. LOL, Great-Grandma.” Poor Mom didn’t realize that LOL doesn’t stand for “lots of love.”
—Jeanne Hendrickson
Time to ask Jeeves
My friend Nancy and I decided to introduce her mother to the magic of the internet. We took her to Ask Jeeves and told her it could answer any question she had. As I sat with fingers poised over the keyboard, Nancy’s mother thought a minute, then responded, “How is Aunt Helen feeling?”
—Catherine Burns
Leave a message after the beep
My mother, a master of guilt trips, showed me a photo of herself waiting by a phone that never rings. “Mom, I call all the time,” I said. “If you had an answering machine, you’d know.” Soon after, my brother installed one for her. When I called the next time, I got her machine: “If you are a salesperson, press one. If you’re a friend, press two. If you’re my daughter who never calls, press 911 because the shock will probably give me a heart attack.”
—Susan Starace Balducci
Wake-up call
I was sound asleep when the telephone jarred me awake. “Hi!” It was my peppy mother-in-law. She proceeded to rattle on about the busy day she had ahead and all the things that awaited her the rest of the week. “Mom,” I interrupted. “It’s five in the morning.”
Her response: “Really? What are you doing up so early?”
—Roseanne Sorcinelli
The escort service
My mother began getting calls from men who misdialed the similar number of an escort service. Mom, who had had her number for years, asked the telephone company to change the organization’s number. They refused. The calls kept coming day and night. Finally, Mom began telling the gentlemen who called that the company had gone out of business. Within a week, the escort service voluntarily changed its number.
—Marian Burgess
Mom’s kitchen
My mom moved into a new condo, and I went to visit for a couple of days. Searching for a coffee cup one morning, I sighed, “It seems like I’m always looking for something in your kitchen.”
“That’s good,” Mom said. When I looked confused, she explained, “Because when you know where to look, it’s time to go home.”
—Caroline Young
Car trouble
As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a couple of people looking under the hood of their car. Concerned, Mom wondered aloud, “Do you think they have a flat tire?”
—Barbara Hedden
When you become your mother
On our way to my parents’ house for dinner one evening, I glanced over at my 15-year-old daughter. “Isn’t that skirt a bit short?” I asked. She rolled her eyes and gave me one of those “oh, Mom” looks. When we arrived at my folks’ place, my mother greeted us at the door, hugged my daughter, then turned to me and said, “Elizabeth! Don’t you think that blouse is awfully low-cut?”
—Elizabeth Scott
Fall risk
My mother was rushed to the hospital following a serious tumble. There, the staff placed a band around her wrist with large letters warning Fall Risk. Unimpressed, Mom said to me, “I’ll have them know I’m a winter, spring and summer risk too.”
—Betty Heim-Campbell
The sound of silence
The first time my mother flew, she was a nervous wreck. During takeoff, the roar from the engines proved reassuring—it meant they were working, she reasoned. But when the plane leveled off, so did the engines. Grabbing the armrests, she asked aloud, “Did we stop?”
—Samantha Earls
Pick a nose, any nose
After the Halloween rush at my parents’ costume business, we discovered that we had many clown noses left unsold. My mom decided to set up a sale box on the counter, hoping they’d move a little faster. And they did, after she put a sign over the box that read: “Pick your nose here!”
—Pauline Kingsman
Tantrums 101
Even though the toddler was having a furious tantrum, his mom was unfazed. “You may as well give up on the crying,” I heard her say as she led him to the store exit. “You’re stuck with me for 18 years.”
—Sheila Custer
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