Of course, many powerful figures grew up under the harsh guidance of one or more parents. But that disapproval usually lets up after someone achieves genuine, going-down-forever-in-history greatness. For instance, you’d imagine that once George Washington helped found an entire nation and became its first trusted leader, Mary Ball Washington would finally stop bringing up the time he shit his pants in Sunday school in front of all the neighbors. Sadly, this was not the case.
While Washington was out kicking the asses of various opposing nations during his military career, Mary Ball was only really interested in how much money he was going to send back home to her. And this wasn’t a case of a poor kid hitting it big and buying his mom a house – the Washington family was kind of loaded. Mary Ball loved getting that sweet, sweet paper more than she cared about whatever war her son was out fighting. She was like a kid who gets a birthday check in the mail and throws the card away without reading it.
While Washington was fighting in the French and Indian War, his mother sent a letter to him on the front lines. It wasn’t to offer encouragement or to tell him that she was proud of his service to the nation – she simply requested that he send her some butter and a Dutchman. You know, while he was out.
That’s not wartime code for something, by the way. Mary Ball wanted her son, who was busy fighting in a war, to send her 1) groceries, and 2) a living Dutch person to be her indentured servant.
Iconic People Who Had Shockingly Horrifying Childhoods