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My parents were very insightful, knowing that if we take away the struggles and effort that are necessary to build self-esteem, then we are, in some way, encouraging the idea that the goal for the next generation is merely to figure out a way to have someone else pay for their needs and wants. It’s an attitude we can’t afford, especially when you read the statistics that 45 to 50 percent of Americans receive some type of government aid. Making others work harder so that you don’t have to is the wrong message to send to our kids. I worry as I see our government support a system that takes away the desire to be self-sufficient by giving people money and benefits that haven’t been earned, eventually leading them to feel they deserve it. It takes away from a person’s self-respect when they stop earning on their own. It creates entitlement and sometimes laziness and often neglects those who really are in need of help.

My youngest, Abigail, was excited to start kindergarten right after we moved to Las Vegas. About two weeks into the school year, when the honeymoon was over, she exclaimed with exasperation while I was hurrying her into the car for school,
“Oh, I get it now. Every day. Get up. Don’t play. Get a bowl of cereal. Get dressed. Get your backpack. Go to school.” She leaned back against the seat with a sigh and then said to me, “How many weeks?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her “You’ve only just begun,” especially since I was having a hard time keeping a straight face about her jaw-dropping revelation. I gently explained to Abi as I drove that my job was working onstage every night and her job was to learn in school every day. I looked at her little face in the rearview mirror as she absorbed the news of how it was going to be five days a week. Kindergarten really is the beginning of having to show up and be responsible. I encouraged her to learn to love her work like I’ve learned to love mine. As a mother, I would love to let her be my baby for as long as possible, but that’s not the kind of love that will give Abigail self-esteem and happiness as she gets older. It’s paid off because now when I suggest that her grades are so good that she’s earned a one-day trip away from school with me, she will turn me down, telling me that she has her work to do and I have mine and that we can play on the weekend.

My father was a successful man because he learned the principles of effort and accomplishment from his mother, who knew what it meant to work. I’m sure when she was a young widow living hand to mouth, using a willow tree as a babysitter, and struggling to go where she could find work, she never dreamed that her grandchildren would tour the world, perform for queens and presidents, start national charities, write books, and produce more than 150 gold records. I believe that it was because of my parents teaching us to grow through effort, discipline,
and an eagerness to try new things and continue to educate ourselves that my brothers and I have been able to maintain our performing careers for five decades.

In our “get-ahead” society, many stay-at-home moms have been made to feel that they don’t have a meaningful job. Please! Who is it, then, that raises the adults who make the decisions, do the research, make technological and medical breakthroughs, provide the necessities of life, and govern the land? Our role as mothers is crucial, especially to the future of our planet. The best way we can contribute is to make sure our kids know how to support themselves and their own families and have decent values in doing it. The principles our children learn at home extend out into our society and eventually the world.

Mothers, fathers, and all parental figures are the role models who daily influence the people who grow up to determine the values of a working society. At the Vancouver Peace Summit in 2009, the Dalai Lama proclaimed to the thousands attending, “The world will be saved by Western women.” I think he’s right. As mothers, we hold the power to give the world the gift of strong, happy children who can change the course of our future for the better.

Rachael designs all the costumes I wear onstage and works as my stylist and wardrobe assistant in Vegas, on the road, and on my Hallmark talk show.

As always, looking up to both of my parents. On our Huntsville, Utah, property.

A
lmost everything my parents owned had been spit on. It wasn’t because of the nine babies they had raised together and the copious amount of drooling that went on for over twenty years. No. It was
their
spit. The two of them would take aim and spit at the same time. For some reason, it was their personal rite to signify that what they had worked so hard for was finally theirs, fully paid off. They would spit on a new car, the front porch of a new home, a sewing machine, a canoe for the fishing pond, and even new furniture, after the last payment had been put in the mail. (Well…they would pretend to spit on the couch. My mother would never truly allow it.) I used to think it was just a goofy quirk of theirs until, as an adult, I happened to read that in ancient Jewish tradition spitting signified legitimate inheritance or ownership, so maybe it was a symbolic gesture passed forward for hundreds of years. It even occurred to me that perhaps this is what started the common and often unconscious motherhood trait of wiping her child’s face using her own saliva on a tissue! Not many of us make it to adulthood without one or two swipes of spit from
our mothers. When my kids were preschoolers, they would run screaming in the opposite direction if they saw me getting a tissue from my purse.

My parents were both frugal with money, but they were very generous with what they had to share. I don’t remember very many Sunday meals where other family members, neighbors, or friends weren’t invited to join our dinner table. My mother would make huge meals from whatever the garden had produced that season or, if it was the dead of winter, whatever we had canned and stored in the root cellar. The table would be set with her best rose pattern china. I have a few pieces of her china in my own curio cabinet. When my mother passed away, I gave each of my brothers one place setting to remember our family meals and the importance she gave to that time together. I value that place setting, first, because of the memories, but also because of how much effort and time it took my mother to get every piece. She couldn’t buy a complete set on impulse and never asked for it to be given to her as a bride. She would never have even suggested such a costly gift. Instead, my mom collected S&H Green Stamps every time she went to the grocery store. When I was little, she would sit me up on a stool at the kitchen table with an empty stamp book and a stack of sheets of stamps. One or two of my brothers would always want a seat at the table, as well. I would lick each stamp carefully and fill every square and row of the “Quick Saver” book. I actually looked forward to doing this, like it was a game to play. This was before smiley face stickers hit the market! (And long before anyone figured out the peel-
and-stick option.) Once she had collected enough pages of stamps, she would get another place setting of her china pattern. I think it took over three years to get every piece she wanted for her set.

My parents found joy in everything they earned themselves. Early on, when my oldest brothers were still little boys, my dad worked at a real estate business. He would find a little house for sale that was usually in complete disrepair and the two of them would fix it up by hand, with my mother painting, wallpapering, and decorating and my father refurbishing, landscaping, and remodeling. As another brother or two would join the family, my father would sell the little house for a profit and move them all to another fixer-upper that had more room. I can’t imagine having to start from scratch over and over, and I’m sure my mother wasn’t always anxious to pack everything up again. But my father was always impressed by how adaptable and quick she was. During World War II, when she was only just out of high school, my mother worked for the military in the Utah General Depot as an efficiency expert. The young girl who had helped coordinate getting war materials to where they were needed became the woman who never seemed to be overwhelmed by a home-makeover project while raising five sons. She saw it as a challenge.

My mother was always the one with a grand creative vision, and my father was the facilitator of her plan. Every house became her “dream house.” But even when she wrote in her journals about a full day of remodeling the next house project, she always mentions an experience with one of her children,
like this one from 1954:
“We scrubbed and cleaned, painted woodwork and
papered walls. Soon the place was sparkling clean. We laid a green congoleum rug on the dining room floor and this is one little scene I know I’ll always remember when I think of that rug. Wayne
[who was 3]
came in from the kitchen doing a little shuffle step with one foot. We started clapping and praising him for his dance and he said: ‘Not many kids can do that.’ That statement will surely become a family quote from now on.”
My mother’s ability to make even chores into a moment of remembered joy made any complaining about hard work seem like needless self-pity.

My mother was never shy about speaking her mind about what would work best for the house and for the family. When I was little, my older brothers would tell me a family story that grew in significance over time. The house had become too crowded, and my visionary mother realized that the vaulted upstairs attic could be turned into an extra room. My father wasn’t too enthusiastic about taking on another project in which he would have to put in flooring and windows and also insulate and paint. He tried to dissuade her right before he left for a two-day fishing trip. While he was gone, my mother decided that the only way to accomplish her goal was for my father to have no choice. (I have to admit, I’ve adopted her clever strategy once or twice in my own adult life.) She went out to the garage and got a sledgehammer and gave the kitchen ceiling a couple of whacks, right where she envisioned the staircase that would lead to the second floor. Let’s just say that when my father got back home, he was completely shocked by the gaping
hole in the ceiling. Soon he realized it would be just as much work to close the hole in the kitchen ceiling and surrendered to his uncompromising and adorable wife, knowing that she was wise to create more space for their growing family. He took over with a wide smile on his face, completely making over the attic as a playroom and a schoolroom. He painted one wall with blackboard paint and built a chalk tray under it. This is where my mother taught my hearing-impaired brothers to read and speak, and also where my father first taught Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay to sing harmonies.

When my brothers were very young, my mother helped out in a tiny dress shop she co-owned with Grandma Osmond. The best part, she said, was being able to purchase fabrics wholesale. Along with fabric to sew dresses for the customers, she would buy practical shirt material sold by the bolt, which cost significantly less than by the yard. Then she would lay out a shirt pattern, starting with the oldest son and trim it down for the youngest son to make matching shirts for all of my older brothers to wear, at a cost of a little less than a dollar each. She made almost all of my dresses and blouses, adding pleating and crisp cuffs. She had an amazing eye for what colors and designs worked together, something she taught me as a very little girl. Not even a scrap of material would go to waste. Anything left over was turned into a quilt at some point. When I was only five my mother taught me to piece together a small doll quilt from scraps of leftover fabric. It made me feel so accomplished. Ever since then, I’ve been a lifelong fabric fanatic myself. Quilting is a favorite pastime, one that I’ll lose an
hour of sleep for if I’m on a roll. Cranston, the fabric company, added me to their list of fabric designers because of my passion for fabric and quilting. They debuted my first fabric collection, called Marie Osmond Heirloom Garden, which I designed. My mother was already quite ill when I had my very first fabric prototypes in hand. I took it all over to her house to show her. Though she had a hard time speaking, her eyes lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. She felt that I had finally “made it,” that my fabric collection was the pinnacle accomplishment of my career. I have to say, I was very pleased with the collection myself and have continued to work with Cranston. They have a standard of quality that is hard to top. Even though my mother was never able to physically make another quilt herself, she seemed the most at peace when I would set up a sewing machine near her bed and stitch together rows of a quilt top while I told her all about my day. The sound of a sewing machine running is like comfort food to me, too. I’ve always felt that everything would eventually be okay when I heard the hum of the machine needle stitching it all together.