The Inevitable Thing About Moms

A Mother’s Day Blog, by Jen and Ash

Jennifer

It was inevitable, I suppose. Folk wisdom told me this would happen. And, honestly, it’s not something I’ve actively resisted. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that it has come to this: 

I’ve finally become my mother.  

What was surprising was the way in which I became my mother.

When I thought about becoming my mother, I thought about the way that she is a force of nature–like when I said, at twelve years old, that I planned to quit school at sixteen and never go back, and she said, in a voice like battleship steel, “You are going to college. Get used to the idea.” I got so used to the idea that I ended up with a Master’s degree. This is almost certainly my mother’s fault. 

I thought about the way that she always took in stray children with such grace and welcome. She took my and my siblings’ high school friends so completely to heart that they came back from college to visit her, to talk over their relationship problems with her, to introduce her to their first babies. 

I thought about becoming a writer like my mother. My mother is an award-winning photojournalist, a writer of humorous essays, a keen observer of life. I…am a writer, but not like she is. I gravitate more toward the fantastical, the science fictional, the faraway lands of imagination more than the close detail of the everyday. But I would not mind becoming a writer like my mother. I have always felt, after all, that she is a better writer than I am. 

I thought, in short, about becoming my mother in the ways that I admired her. 

Instead, I got her stove. 

Her stove?

Her stove. 

That’s right. My mother and I now have identical stoves. We have identical black Whirlpool gas ranges. Hers came with the house my parents bought when my dad retired. Mine came with the house I bought when my husband and I got married. I’ve used her stove to make Thanksgiving dinner for twenty people. She has never used mine, but she certainly could. They’re exactly the same. 

It doesn’t make sense, really. As cooks, my mother and I are irreconcilably different. She makes a few things very well, but doesn’t really enjoy cooking. I enjoy cooking, and I enjoy playing around with recipes and menus and kitchen gadgets. So, our similarity in major appliances is unexpected and baffling. But I suppose we all feel that way, when we finally become our mothers. Has it really come to this? 

And what about my daughters? What will it mean for them, when they inevitably become … me? 

Ash

I didn’t think about becoming my mother. We have always been very similar; we’re both writers, we enjoy the same books, we’re scientifically minded. I inherited my faith and my perfectionism, my love of the fantastical and my need to dissect stories from my mom. Perhaps it is because so many similarities already existed that I did not think about turning into my mother. 

How else could I become her? Her love of mushrooms failed to grow on me, so what was left?

Her pants. 

Yes, really. 

I’ve never followed current fashion trends, because I’ve always valued practicality and comfort over whether something was “in.” Lately, as I’ve developed a style beyond “hey, that fits!” that means I tend to dress like a background character in a low budget science fantasy movie. 

And then I noticed, while clearing out my closet, that all the pants I own–and a good number of the tops–are olive green. Olive green! At times it seemed like the only color my mother owned, and I made fun of her for it! Now here I was, with a closet full of the stuff, just like my mother had growing up. 

Granted, she never set out to dress like she’d just walked off the set of Jurassic Park (not to my knowledge, anyway). Still, we owned the same clothes. 

I called my mother shortly after this realization struck to tell her–and to apologize for mocking her olive-green color scheme. 

Jennifer and Ash

Sometimes when we hear, “Oh, she has become her mother!” we worry: will I become the things about my mother that I didn’t like? The way she always chewed her nails? The massive (impressive, really) collection of dishes that I wouldn’t know what to do with? 

Based on our experience, maybe we don’t have to worry so much. After all, we’re already like our moms in the ways we don’t mind – I don’t mind being a writer, although I’d like to be as good as she is (Jennifer); I never minded dissecting stories together (Ash). When we finally realize we have become our mothers, perhaps it will surprise us, perplex and yet delight us, or at the very least, make us laugh. 

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms! May we all become like our mothers in the most unexpected and delightful of ways!