As we have aged, have you become your Mother? Or are you very different than your Mother was? We, as the Boomer generation, are different in so many ways yet in others we are the same. So are you different or like your Mama?
Love my Mom, wonderful woman. She is very old fashion, and we are very, very different. We are two very different women, who respect each other's ways.
My mom passed away in 2005, but we were very different. Probably because she was a Libra and me a Virgo... LOL
Seriously though, we did and thought about things totally different. But, she grew up in a time of picking cotton, so I would probably have been kind of sad like her had I grown up in those days.
My mother was a very traditional Native American woman and lived a very difficult life laced with prejudice and alcohol and pain and sorrow. So I am very different from her. I was taken away as an infant under the pretense that they would place me in temporary care until my parents could get a place to live and bring me home. My father was a commercial fisherman in the pacific northwest and had gone to Alaska for 4 months to fish and earn money for the family to live on. When he returned my mother and he went into town to the Child Welfare office and were told that my mother had signed papers to give me up for adoption. She could not read and signed with an X, the social worker had told her what the paper said and she believed her. So in those days there was not justice for the Native Americans and they lost me. I was raised in a non-Native home and grew into a good woman, but I knew nothing about who I really was. Since reuniting with my family in 1998, I have been learning about my parents and grandparents and my other family and learning to just be me.
The all still live on the reservation in Washington state, but I have moved to central Missouri to live on the land that my husband and I are buying. I am more comfortable here and find it much more peaceful. But I am a very outspoken and educated woman who has a great heart and compassionate soul. So I would say that I am not like my mother, but that she is proud of me any way. I do see her in my dreams and in my heart.
I hope to get as wise as that woman! We are different people, but my mother has some qualities that I adore and aspire to still. I am unlike my mother when it come to being out spoken, she runs right under the radar were I am just all out there! I'll learn...
I am completely different than my Mom in so many ways. She was all about work and her career ( a different twist for her generation) but mostly out of necessity. She was hardly ever around; I was raised by my Grandmother also (she also worked all the time) so very young I became the woman of the house and took care of all the household chores for everyone. They never went to my school plays or recitals, they took it for granted that I was a High Average A+ student and didn't attend Open School Day. I was the one that went to open school day for my younger brother to speak to the Teachers. There were other things that happened to me also because of lack of supervision or I should really say 'lack of protection', like being molested. So I became what they weren't', a dedicated FULL TIME STAY AT HOME MOM to my children. I helped financially by Babysitting for other Working Moms; my goal was to make sure that these children were safe as their Mothers worked outside the home. My mom and grandmother would say I was not wise because I have no money, no retirement and nothing to show for not working and establishing a career. It wasn't until my Mom was very sick and she knew she did not have much to live did she admit that she was very proud of me and that my unpaid work for the Church and my low paid work with children was something much greater then what she ever did. At the end of her life, I was the only one there for her; she said that I am the rich one because I am surrounded by my children (now adults) and my Grandchildren, God children and children I've babysat that are now adults and introducing me to their children. I am never alone :-) My Mom and Grandmother may have had money, designer clothes and jewelry; but I have secret hidden treasures stored up in HEAVEN.
I'm the flip side of my mother. She stayed in a marriage that wasn't so hot for security and (I guess) because she wanted children. She was a city girl who never learned to drive and I don't believe she was happy in the country. She was under her husband's thumb and had to depend on him for everything. I got out of a marriage that wasn't so hot because I didn't want to be my mother. I didn't have children because I would have been a lousey single parent. I'm not very good at the career thing but I don't want to get married again. When you have a domineering father the last thing you want is a domineering husband.
I got my inner strength from my mom, who got it from her mom, who got it from her mom. And I got hidding my feelings from others, keeping things bottled up inside from my mom. But other than that I am completely different from my mama.
My Mother and I are very different. She says what is on her mind, and has alot of salt and vinegar, if you will. I have a great sense of humor, and am so easy-going, but I do not speak out as she does...I am tactful, and always wanting things to go smoothly. But there have been times when I know I have inherited her strengths...it is scary when you find yourself saying the same things to your kids as your Mom said to you...then you wonder if you are turning into your Mother for sure....I admire, and respect my Mom for treating each of her 8 children as if they are gifts from God...each of us a precious treasure....I love her so much.
I never really got a chance to really know my mom, she died when I was thirteen after losing a seven year battle with cancer. I'm sure as a way of shielding me from her illness, my dad sent we off to boarding school for most of those years. The only thing is, this school was just 5 blocks from home. I felt really isolated and alone. My only sister, who was 12 years older than I had left to become a nun. Mom had even kept the cancer a secret from both her and my dad until after she entered so as not to influence her decision. From what I've learned she was a very strong, independent and successful woman who sold real estate - not many women did this prior to 1950. Looking back I can only hope to have had some of her grace, strength and courage in facing life's challenges. I think she would have been pleased with many of my choices -I'm just sorry and sad I never had those years with her.
