Help Me – I’ve Become My Mother

Remember when you were a kid and your mother made you clean your room when you wanted, needed to spend time with your friends? Remember how she controlled your life wanting to know who you were with and what you were doing every moment of every day?

I told myself then that I would not grow up to be like my mother. My kid’s would have choices I decided. They would have freedom, and not have to account for every little moment of their lives. Kids need privacy too.

Then I became a mother. The world suddenly seemed a much more dangerous place. My children, I decided needed to learn so many things in such a short time. I needed to teach them to be responsible, learn to make wise choices, and most of all I needed them to be safe.

My oldest son was twelve when I heard myself saying to him. “No you cannot go to Jimmy’s house until your room is cleaned.!” As he headed back to his room mumbling about how unfair I was.

I watched him go with one thought in my mind. “Help me, I have suddenly become my mother!”

Over the course of the next several years, more and more I noticed that things I said were my mother’s words. Things I did, were my mother’s actions. What is more. These words and actions came naturally to me.

Finally, I understood what I could not understand as a child. My mother did not say and do these things because she wanted to have “power” over me as I had thought. She had said and done these things out of love and a desire to protect me and prepare me for the future.

She wanted me to be safe and grow up to be a worthwhile person. Just as I wanted those things for my children.

It took me years to understand how truly caring and committed my mother was. Now when I see things in myself that reminds me of my mother I feel pride. She was a great mother, caring, attentive and determined. Those are traits I have learned to admire in others and in myself.

Now when I have moments when I think that I have become, in some ways like my mother, instead of feeling a sense of horror I feel pride.

Whenever someone says to me. “You are just like your mother.” my heartfelt response is “Thank You!”