Daughter of a Daughter of a Victorian Mother

The expectation for each grade, an A,
and for dishes washed, dried…not in the sink.
Chew your food, never talk with your mouth full.
Do you not know prepositions? Don’t end with “of.”
Surely you don’t intend to wear a dress that dirty.
Can’t you plan meals with color-compatible dishes?
The rules of a lifetime come back, rules my
mother lived by. On how many different mornings
did thoughts of rules, followed or ignored, eclipse the dawn?

andersons-1949
I’m dead center, sitting on Granddaddy’s lap, between Grandmother and Mother.