SEX, DRUGS AND… KITCHEN ROLL
Turning into one’s mother might only be a scary manifestation of that great fear: getting old. Lost youth and unfulfilled potential doesn’t have to turn into flower arranging classes in high-waisted jeans.
Why do we become our mothers?
There are a few things people universally fear in life: public speaking, spiders, and becoming our parents.
I LOVE MY MOM.
But we are ALL valuable individuals with a finite human life span – the only one we get – that should not be surrendered to circumstance at the first hurdle… or even last resort! Kids and family responsibilities are important – even essential to some – but so are YOU. To sell yourself short, to give away more than half of the years you have on this earth without a fight, is IMHO a suicide of sorts.
In any small city or town throughout America (or the rest of the world for that matter) you will see this large subset of female humanity: the “mom”-aged women, the faceless, cropped hair, mom-jean-clad frumpy drones, driving people back and forth to sports and appointments, grocery shopping in their baggy sweatshirts, doing laundry with no make up on. Every one of these women looks like the other; depressing, sexless, hopeless. Now, among these millions of mom-zombies, I can guarantee that some of them used to be different: full of vitality, sexuality; glamorous, fun, trendy. So what the hell happens? Do they all get shipped off somewhere to be brainwashed? Is there a signal that goes off in their brain when they hit 37 that they must all dress, look and act like 60 year old women? Why does this happen? And how can we stop it from happening to us?
I am a victim of this phenomenon myself. As long as I could remember, I had strangers approach me to ask if I was my mother’s daughter. After speaking to someone for two minutes, people would exclaim how much I talk like my mother, how our mannerisms are identical. I always took these as compliments because I saw my mother as beautiful, intelligent, stylish, and generally loved by everyone, but the more I thought about it, the scarier it seemed because my personality was essentially a copy of someone else’s, and was being shaped seemingly beyond my control. I never remember purposely emulating her, but there were times (and still are) when I hear something come out of my mouth that almost makes me stop cold—I sound exactly like my mother.
I also have the unique insight of being a “young adult,” a woman of 26 who is still young enough to look and act youthful without reprise but also old enough to be getting married and having kids; since I’m not doing the latter, I get to watch as my previously stylish and adventurous friends became overnight frumps. A little weight gain here, a child there, a stationwagon; reads like a horror movie, and I watched it all like a rubbernecker watches a trainwreck.
Somewhere between the all-night parties and the PTA meetings, women give up.
With new priorities (see children, husband, a happy home instead of handbags, career, parties) they actually stop caring about how they project themselves to the world.
It’s sad to say but I think it’s the natural, instinctive, human course of things for women to undergo this sad transformation. It’s like a reverse butterfly effect: going from a beautiful, vibrant creature to a sad, drab moth. It enables you to refocus your attention on things that nature considers more important than you new heels: your children, and taking care of your home and family.
So then, the women who manage to maintain a sense of self throughout their lives, someone who puts an emphasis on their looks and wellbeing and style, is actually a freak of nature. A beautiful, wonderful abnormality that we should all aspire to. An evolution of what history has told us women should become as they age.
As Dylan Thomas so famously wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day;/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Just because it’s easier to give up and become a soccer mom doesn’t mean it’s right. And while there’s nothing wrong with doing what your mother did, being like your mother; work hard to be who you are instead. Be perfectly Darwinian in your quest to survive as a woman with passion and energy, not just another woman eating breakfast behind the wheel of a mini-van. Weigh the costs VERY carefully because they may cost you the life you never had!
