Becoming Our Mothers

While I have no intentions of turning this into a weight loss blog (there is no way I could ever compete with Wendy), my membership in Weight Watchers deserves mention now and again. As of the date of this entry I’ve lost 4.4 pounds and let me tell you, it will be a joyous day on Planet Deedums when, in just a few short days, I’m finally able to slap that 5-lb magnet on my fridge! I’ll put it right next to the little pig with the conversation bubble that says “You want broccoli!”

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing it up this time is because a friend of mine just joined Weight Watchers this week, and upon announcing this news to me added, “I’ve officially become my mother. This is a new low for me.” And this made me laugh. I’m not laughing so much because I know her mother (who happens to be a terrific woman), but mainly because I’ve realized that at our age, becoming our mothers is quite possibly our greatest fear. Oh sure, we fear death on some level as we hurtle mercilessly toward middle age, we fear for our financial future, we fear the wrinkles that we fight and the gray hairs that we yank out of our heads, we fear (in my case) a lifetime of continued frustration at the hands of the opposite sex (and having our peaks wasted in the process), we fear missing the biggest sale ever at Kaufmann’s. But more than any of this, we fear becoming our mothers.

I’m noticing lately that certain things come out of my mouth that make me stop and say, “hey, who said that?” and I realize…it was my mother. I hear myself emitting words, goofy expressions, vocal inflections – all eerily identical to my mother. I call my sister and say, “Hello, this is your mother,” just to freak her out. While I’ve always been good at impressions and imitations, this is one that comes all too naturally. Too naturally for my own comfort. In fact, it’s effortless…and that totally bums me out.

Now truthfully, I don’t think I would mind becoming my mother if it meant I would just simply physically resemble her. (Well, as long as I didn’t have to recreate that giant anglofro she had in the 70’s). The woman is half my size! She goes to work and gets asked out more times in one shift than I have been asked out in the last decade. And if that weren’t bad enough, take into consideration that (a) she’s a cleaning lady and as such is wearing grubby clothes and little or no makeup when these hits take place and (b) most of the guys asking her out are young enough to date ME! She doesn’t go out with any of them (and truthfully I wouldn’t either, since my mother and I both have a die-hard rule about requiring our dates to possess full sets of teeth), but still, I can’t even get a flirtatious smile out of a guy, much less an offer for a movie and a drink…and here goes my 58-year-old mother fighting off men left and right with her toilet brush.

But really, if I could avoid becoming her and just look like her, I think I could accept that. But alas - I look like my father.