My daughter likes to be like her mom. She says, "I got my reading smarts from Mom." This is because she is ten years old. In a few short years she will be a teenager, and will start the ritual of separation. Then she will not want to be anything like me. This is as it should be. A girl has to become independent of her mother to grow up. This is sometimes difficult for moms, as t-shirts and birthday cards abound using the image of a woman screaming something like, "Aaack! I've become my mother!" Women joke about how they live in fear of becoming their mothers, and often they aren't really joking! As part of that separation process we think the most terrible thing in the world would be to be like our mothers, as if then we wouldn't be unique individuals.


My sisters and I have joked in this way for years. If you make a phone call early in the morning, you've become Mom. If you leave your purse or coat behind, you've become Mom. We've teased how much one of the others looked like Mom or did something like Mom whenever possible. But as we get older, we find ourselves doing more and more things like Mom and admitting it. My sisters and I know now, that sometimes one has to make that phone call early before getting on with a busy day. We realize that when our minds are filled with so much to do we sometimes get absent-minded and leave something behind like a purse or coat. We wonder how our mother managed to do all that she did while managing a household with six children.

More importantly, we can now see and appreciate who our mother is as a person. Why wouldn't we want to be bold, courageous and willing to stand up for ourselves and for what we believe in? Why wouldn't we want to be loving, kind, compassionate and caring towards other people? Why wouldn't we want to be intelligent and have the ability to do a variety of things and juggle a variety of commitments? Just what is so wrong about becoming our mother? After all, as daughters through time "become" their mothers in different ways, they are carrying on traditions and traits through generations. All mothers can live on through eternity, through their daughters.

For my sisters and me there is another component as well. As we see our mother's traits and yes, even eccentricities, in each other it gives us a sense of connectedness. We are each of us like Mom in our own way, so we know that as long as we have each other, we will have a little bit of her as well.

So, today, I will proudly say, "I've become my mother!"

Me, Blogging?

Well, my husband said I should start a blog. I guess he thinks I have a lot to say and maybe I should write it all down so he wouldn't be the only one that would have to hear it! Anyone who knows me well, knows I have a lot of opinions and I'm not afraid to use them.

I've always enjoyed writing, though, and I never think anything I write is good enough for anyone else to read. He seems to disagree, so for my husband, I start this blog. We'll see how it goes.