Did you want to grow up to be like your mother?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I’m 21 now… and I don’t know if I consciously wanted to be like my mum, but I sure have turned out like her. I’m scarily similar to her… since I admire her a lot- Jesus is the centre of her life, and I’ve definitely learnt that from her- that’s mostly good. But it also means we get on each other’s nerves because we have the same faults! We’re both stubborn and can’t stand being corrected, perfectionists and critical. I’m living at home, so we tend to rub each other up wrong if I’m around too much. But it also means we both love talking about the Church and Jesus and faith and stuff like that, which other people may not appreciate.

One thing I really appreciate about my mum (and my dad for that matter) is that she never expected anything of me or my siblings except that we love the Lord and do His will. I guess I want the same for my kids. My future kids. (I also want lots of kids- my mum had five… and believe me, that’s a LOT in India nowadays)

Go Mama! 👍
 
No, not really. My mother hated being a SAHM. She was bored and frustrated which resulted in impatience with us. Once we were older, around 8 or 9, she returned to work part-time and became a much more pleasant person to be around. She believed it was best for her to stay home till we were a bit older but she now says that if she could do it all over again she would have taken her maternity leave and returned to work as soon as possible. Perhaps in her case it would have been better.
However, she enccouraged us to get a good education, something which her father believed was unnecessary for a woman. My mother only got her university degree and teaching qualification when her father had died and she was about 30. My father died when I was 12 and my mother became a full time teacher and the sole breadwinner. If she hadn’t gone back to school and earned her degree I don’t know what would have happened to us. She did teach us that it is never too late to learn and it is good to have a qualification that will allow you to support yourself, just in case. She wasn’t a bad mother, just not a very maternal one.
Gearoidin
 
SMHW said:
Lest anyone get the wrong idea…

Today I wish I was much more like my mother. Not exactly like her. But a lot more like her than I actually am.

But when I was a child I didn’t want to be much like her at all. (In fact, the idea of being a grown-up in general seemed pretty awful. I didn’t want to ever be an adult.)
Click to expand...
Exactly. Same here.

I vowed never to get married, get a job and settle into a comfy illusion of contentedness. No, I wanted to be a poet, and a mystic, and live alone in the wilderness (or at least a tiny apartment with a huge library in the city:rolleyes: ). I waited to meet a white-bearded old man or find an ancient manuscript that would initiate me in the secrets of the other realms. Instead, I found the Church. And then got married, and had a baby…

I appreciate and miss my mother more every day. I always respected her: she was highly educated, a psychologist, worked (but here in Sebia you don’t notice if your mother works or not - short and early working hours etc. 🤷 ), didn’t do much housework at all (I’m definitely like that 😃 ), and taught me how to prepare healthy and tasty food in 20 mins or less. 😃 She lacked vanity completely. It’s true. It’s possible. Believe it or not.

She was funny, and loud, and the heart and soul of every gathering. She was always absolutely honest and not everyone appreciated that, especially her bosses at work. :o This sometimes made her a less than perfect psychologist - she could not even imagine people would ever want to conceal something from others, or from themselves!

She was strong, open-minded, and devout in her own honest way. I want to grow up to be like her now! 😃
 
It wasn’t until my daughters became teenagers that I realized that I’d become my mother (well, sounded like her anyway)!
 
In reading through these posts I was reminded of another great thing about my Mom. She often told me to judge a person by the way he or she treats me, not by their religion, color, country of origin or anything else. My Dad’s family was very prejudiced(only liked white, American Catholics) so I’m thankful that I had my Mom to balance things. My husband and I have been married for more than 30 years. He is from an Indian Hindu family. If not for my Mom I don’t think I would ever have married him even though she had already passed away when we met. Still her influences remained with me.
 
I would love to be more like my mother as I grow up. She is to me a living saint, her sacrificial love for us kids, and the suffering she has had to put up with over the years both with the difficulties my father has given her and how rebellious us kids are sometimes. The committment and sacrifice she has put into marriage, she is my saint who I want to imitate when and if I become a mother.
 
I hate to cook. My mom hates to cook.

We are both terrible cooks. :o
 
I could never be like my mom. She was a saint. Had to be. Raised 7 kids. I only had 2.
Kathy
 
Absolutely not! My poor mother was chronically depressed and emotionally repressed, and she joylessly went about her daily duties year after year. My father was controlling and distant, and she seemed more like a slave than a partner. I didn’t want any part of a life such as hers, so I went to the opposite extreme, thanks in part to the influence of the women’s movement, which was in full force as I was in my teen years. Looking back as an adult, I know that they were both just poor sinners trying to get through life, like everyone else, and that both of them truly loved us kids, even though they had a hard time showing it. I’m just sorry that my mother hasn’t had more happiness in her life. 😦
 
CarrieH said:
Absolutely not! My poor mother was chronically depressed and emotionally repressed, and she joylessly went about her daily duties year after year. My father was controlling and distant, and she seemed more like a slave than a partner. I didn’t want any part of a life such as hers, so I went to the opposite extreme, thanks in part to the influence of the women’s movement, which was in full force as I was in my teen years. Looking back as an adult, I know that they were both just poor sinners trying to get through life, like everyone else, and that both of them truly loved us kids, even though they had a hard time showing it. I’m just sorry that my mother hasn’t had more happiness in her life. 😦
Click to expand...
Wow! you just described my mother and her life! My mother “saved” herself for marriage right after college. She married a serial cheater who converted to Catholism for her. She went on to have several children at a rapid pace. So rapid that after #6 the doctors told her she should not have anymore, period. She went on to have 2 more. The doctors finally convinced her to stop, and I will never forget how she had to get my father’s permission to have the needed hysterectomy. Being Catholic, my Mother felt she had no alternative but to stay in a marriage with a cheater. Of course she couldn’t get a divorce. My Father was mentally abusive and my Mother stayed depressed. She hid “it” by drinking every night while I was a teenager.

No, I learned early on that I would never settle for her life. No way did I want her life. My parents were married almost 50 years. I believe my mother was extremely depressed, but hiding it for 48 of them. I think that is extremely sad.
 
Bella3502 said:
No, I learned early on that I would never settle for her life. No way did I want her life. My parents were married almost 50 years. I believe my mother was extremely depressed, but hiding it for 48 of them. I think that is extremely sad.
Click to expand...
I think the silent suffering was part of their generation’s values. After all, what would the neighbors think? My mother didn’t drink, but she held everything in and beat herself up for not being perfect, and worked herself into a major depression which has required hospitalization from time to time. And then, when she is in the hospital, she tells the docs what they want to hear rather than what is really going on with her, because she doesn’t want to “look bad” in their eyes. It’s tragic, really. I’m glad that our generation is more open about things and less tolerant of abuse.
 
Yes and no. I mean there are a number of things about my mom that I definitely wanted to be like. She was always completely generous with her love. No question about it, my sisters and I knew we were loved without condition. She also always put family first and invested plenty of time to doing fun outings with us, reading to us, and making nice meals. She was also always polite, never used bad language, was always honest. So, I think in a lot of important ways I did want to be like my mom.

I know that I always wanted to be different though, even if it was just for the sake of being different. I think that is why I wear my hair long and not layered, because if I was to cut it, I might look like my mom. Also, my mom has never had much of a sense of humor and has never known how to just relax and have fun. I am very different from her in that regard.

She has a beautiful house, perfectly decorated. My house…well I do have 4 kids and that is completely obvious from looking at my house. My mom’s house looks like something from Sunset magazine. Mine certainly doesn’t. Not saying that I wouldn’t like to be more like my mom in this regard, just facing the reality that I am not.

So, probably as far as the most important traits, yes I did want to grow up to be like my mom.
 
Like most of you, my answer is yes and no.

My mum is generous to a fault, smart and wise, hardworking and good at her work, values education enormously, loves life, food, shopping, art and music, and has taught us to do the same.

At the same time she does kinda take over your life if you let her! When she gets a bright idea and wants you to do something, either for her or for yourself, she grabs hold like a terrier and won’t finish until it’s done, and done her way (which, Lord love her, isn’t always the only or best way though she’d never admit it).
 
pigtown said:
YES!! I definitely wanted to grow up to be like my Mother. She was the kind of Mother every child should have. When I grew up she was my best friend. She had to quit school in the third grade because of her heart but she valued education. She wanted children very badly (she wanted to have 2 girls and 1 boy). Her first daughter died at birth (the doctor said it was a warning because of her heart condition). I was born 18 months later. When I wanted to join the Brownies but there wasn’t one nearby she took the bus downtown just so she could learn all there was to learn about being a Brownie leader. Then she started the first Brownie troop at our church. When I was in high school she continued with her Brownies. When I got married, she cooked all the food for my reception. She loved my Dad, she loved me and she loved her grandsons. When she passed away on Christmas of 1969 I lost my best friend. She never got to hold her granddaughter but when my daughter was confirmed she took my Mom’s name for her Confirmation name. Now that she is expecting her own daughter she is going to name her daughter after the Grandmother that she never knew.
I have now outlived my Mom but I have never even come close to being the kind of Mother she was.
Click to expand...
What a lovely tribute to a special Mom.
 
One time while in confession a very conservative priest told me I was lucky to have my mother, that she is a saint. That has always stuck with me. She is very transparent in struggling with her weaknesses, but it is also very clear how much she loves God and seeks Him. I remember asking once whether I should pray that my mother be healed from a chronic illness she was diagnosed with because, while everyone else was lamenting the illness, she was thanking God for giving her some suffering to be able to offer up. People could not understand why she was so cheerful rather than sad and depressed with the news. The priest did tell me to pray for her anyways though, 🙂
 
Newzie52 said:
What a lovely tribute to a special Mom.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your sweet message. I wish everyone could have had a Mother like mine. Even though she was taken on Christmas, 1969 I still miss her each and every day. She was only 53 and I’m 65 so it’s very strange that I’m older than my Mom. There were many times when I was growing up when my Dad would be sitting in the living room with his big glass of milk with ice in it and my Mom would be sitting on his lap. I had the kind of parents that you don’t often hear of these days. I was so blessed!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top