Leandro Margulis heard many of the same refrains from his mother growing up.
“Have you eaten yet? Take a jacket with you. Don’t make me worry!”
Call it typical Jewish mother helpfulness for life’s day-to-day to challenges.
Margulis, 30, decided it was time to pass these lifelong messages on in the form of the Jewish Mother Pen.
The pen was released four months ago and bears six of the more commonly said phrases by his mother, ranging from “Call your Mother” to “Never pay retail.”
“People get a crack out of it,” Margulis said, “and they come up with other phrases their relatives would say to them.”
The phrases rotate every time the black-inked pen is clicked.
Margulis, the director of business development at Quixey in San Francisco, a search engine for finding apps for smartphones and tablets, said he came up with the idea for the pen while at a leadership seminar last June with World ORT, the Jewish education nonprofit.
“We were having a leadership-training seminar and this coach had these pens with the six questions of her methodology on it,” he said.
Margulis thought it was a good idea to have reminders, whatever they may be. This struck home when he was planning a trip for teens to visit Argentina with ORT and he realized how concerned parents were for their children. With something as simple as a pen, he thought, “everyone could have a Jewish mother so that they would always have something to remind them of what they should be doing.”
The first few orders have been placed on Amazon.com, which can be accessed through the website Margulis created, www.jewishmotherpen.com. The pens, which retail for $3 each, are also available at Dayenu Gifts and Books at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
Alicia Margulis, 59, said she was flattered by her son’s creation.
“It’s nice to see the phrases written on a pen that everyone can use,” she said. “These were things that I was taught by my mother. It’s passed on from generation to generation.”
She’s been giving the pens to friends and family in Aventura, Fla., where she lives.
Margulis says he wants to make new models of the pen with more phrases — he’ll take suggestions from anyone.
“I’m hoping [the pen] will make people laugh,” he said. “I want it to go viral so people can remember to take care of themselves.”