LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Finally, a tribute to the old adage mother knows best. We asked you to share advice your mothers gave you that eventually made you say, Mom was right. Laura Bathke starts us off.
LAURA BATHKE: When I was about 14, I was starting to think about what I might want to do with a career. And the first thing that my mom suggested to me was architecture, but I dismissed it immediately. I told her, Mom, I don't want to spend all day doing math. And now I have two degrees in architecture. And I have to admit that my mom was right all along.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This Mother's Day, I'd like to thank my mother for insisting that I take a typing class. I was one of two males in a class of 45 students. And those typing skills sure helped me out when computers started coming into our offices in the late 1980s.
VICTORIA PISCIT: Hi, my name is Victoria Piscit (ph). My daughter was born five weeks premature, and I was discharged from the hospital while she was still in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. And I went home that night and called my mother in despair because it's not right to be discharged from a hospital without your baby. And she said, Victoria, your baby knows you. Your babies love you. She smells you. She will be OK. And that advice literally got me through that first night at home. Luckily, my daughter was discharged four days later.
SCOTT SIMON, BYLINE: Hi, my name is Scott Simon. My mother always said better to be slightly overdressed than slightly underdressed. Of course, when I was younger, I thought that's pompous. That's pretentious. She always said, you know, honey, someday you'll run into the Duchess of Cambridge, and when you do, would you rather be the guy wearing a blazer and a tie or the guy wearing an Arctic Monkeys "Suck It And See" T-shirt?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And from my mom, who fled Cuba when she was a young mother and never went to college, she always told us to get an education. She'd say they can take everything away from you except what you know.
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JAMES HIDER: Hi, Lulu. This is your husband, James, wishing you a very happy Mother's Day. And here's your daughter, Cassenia.
CASSENIA: Hi, Mommy. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh, my goodness. I'm so touched I'm crying. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.