Mothers and Daughters

So, the thing is... apparently, my mom doesn't always agree with my parenting choices.

I've been thinking a lot about moms and daughters since I find myself in the position of being both. My mom was on vacation last week and I pined for her since I wasn't able to talk to her almost every day the way I normally do. (I did call her once at the beach house where she and my dad were staying with their best friends, the Thompsons. She got that hushed, embarrassed voice like I used to when I was in college and my cool friends were over and my mom called to check on me...)

Anyway, my mom is like a one-woman pep rally for my kids and she loves hearing every single detail, every single tiny nuance of every single accomplishment. I can call her when I'm having one of those "oh my gosh, why is no one here to see how adorable/amazing/horrible this is?" moments. I like to call her when my children have taken off all of their clothes and are having a naked tea party out back and I just want to SQUEEZE them. She knows EXACTLY how I feel.

In fact, maybe she thinks I dote on them a bit TOO much. Maybe it's THAT.

I haven't always felt so close to my mom. I was a harsh judge of her parenting skills, which is to say that I felt she was wholly unfair to me during my completely rational and mature teenage years. I have spent some time in a therapist's office dissecting her effect on my life choices and self-esteem. I still feel like she somewhat underestimated what a sensitive child I was and that her vision of who I would be if I reached my potential was pretty far removed from who I actually WAS, in some ways.

I think relationships between mothers and daughters are hard in general. They don't start out that way but I think they evolve into very complex organisms. I adore my mother and since I became a mom myself, I have so much of a greater understanding of why she made the choices she made in her parenting of my siblings and me. Plus, she's a wonderful and imaginative and positive grandmother to my children, both of whom love her madly. So do ya think I could cut her even one bit of slack?

No way.

I still remember the time she was taking Ana out of her car seat when Ana was six months old or so and she accidentally bumped Ana's head on the car door. "MOTHER," I said, "Good GRIEF! PLEASE be careful! She's the only daughter I have!" As if I hadn't done that very same thing myself. As if Ana was even crying.

Maybe she thinks I'm too protective of my girls?

I long for my mother. I call her (or e-mail) nearly every day and I wish so much that we lived closer so she could see the adorable things my kids do on a daily basis. As it is, she travels here a least once a month. She says she feels a "physical need" to hold my children --isn't that wonderful? But about four weeks ago, my mom and I were talking and she said The Thing. You know, The THING. She said, "I don't agree with everything you do as a parent, but I do agree with THAT."

I can't even remember what we were talking about. And I never heard the part about agreeing with my point. Because, for about four weeks now, I've been wondering, "What does she MEAN, she doesn't agree with everything I do? What's not to agree with?" And I've been racking my brain to figure out what it is.

I bet it's about what/how I feed my kids...?

Do all daughters have a "I love you/Please go away" thing going with their moms? It's like the Push Me/ Pull You animal in Dr. Doolittle. It should be FUNNY because, of course, my mom felt exactly the same way about HER mother. But it's slightly tragic because my daughters will feel the same way about me and my feelings are already hurt by that! They'll dissect my every motive and complain to their therapists about me and the cruel things I did to them as children. My relationship with four-year-old Ana is already starting to get more complicated. I am, after all, Keeper of the M&Ms and Finger Paints, and as such, I have elevated myself into the position of She Who Arbitrarily Says No. (At least according to Ana. *I* might have a totally different person in mind for that title. Ahem.)

Do you think my mom thinks I'm too controlling? Is THAT what it is?

We expect so much from our parents, don't we? There's a line in a Nancy Griffith song that says "But no one ever knows the heart of anyone else." I think this applies to the parent/child relationship, too. Ultimately, as daughters or sons, we have to take responsibility for talking and communicating with our parents (once we get past the point where our only communication with them is the word "Moooooooooooooooooooommmm!") They are not, after all, mind readers, voodoo healers, or inhuman drones without feelings and insecurities all their own. (Of course, if your mom really IS a voodoo healer or makes her living reading minds, I mean no offense.) As for our parents, well, they must let us go to become the people we are and then they must accept us, as adults. In fact, that might be the key--maybe we have to accept EACH OTHER as adults. Not gods or children but on a certain level, peers. I don't agree with everything my mom does, either, but at some point, I became less invested in needing to pass judgment on her life, just as I don't do that to my other friends. And, in all seriousness, at some point, I really did get over needing her approval, which was a very liberating thing. Maybe, if I can do this with my parents, I can also achieve it with my kids.

Maybe my mom thinks I overthink everything?

After I had Ana, I apologized to my mother for being such a handful growing up, and so UNGRATEFUL for all she did for me. She just smiled and quoted a German poet, who said, (in essence) that in the cycles of life, we don't appreciate our parents until we have children and they don't appreciate us until THEY have children... "Through generations we pass the Golden Ball from father to son. Everyone passes it on, but no one has ever returned it." We smiled at each other, our eyes full of tears, linked not by our bond as mother and daughter but by our shared experience as PARENTS. It was a lovely moment.

I never bargained for that, though. In all the years I was passing judgment on my poor mother, I never thought that, at some point, I was going to feel the sting of my own children doing the same thing to ME. It's coming. I can see it like an oncoming train, and I'm about as powerless to stop it. Recently, I said to my husband, "I will make a lot of mistakes as a parent and the girls will blame me for all of them and more, but they will never be able to say that I made them out of apathy." (Does that sound defensive to you?)

Maybe she thinks I hover too much? My mom, I mean.

And the other thing I never bargained for was that my mother and my children would gang up against me. On her last visit, Ana asked my mom for one of the cookies she keeps in her car. My mom said, "Well, let's ask your mom first."

"Let's not," said Ana. "So she can't say no."

Maybe my mom thinks I'm too strict?

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (4) and Jane (17 months). She lives in Austin, Texas and sometimes she wishes she could skip directly to grandmotherhood.