Do you ever think you are turning into your parents?
They do say that girls turn into their mothers and boys into their fathers, and so before you marry someone you should take a long hard look at their same gender parent and consider whether you want to be living with someone like that in 30 years time.
I have always said that I really don’t want to turn into my mother. We had nothing in common and a totally different outlook on life and so I have always thought it unlikely, but just occasionally I do find myself saying something that could well have come straight from her mouth and that’s quite scary. Equally scarily, I do on occasion look into the mirror and (usually when I’m tired, unwell and not wearing any makeup) see a representation of her looking back at me!
I have a half sister with whom, until quite recently, I had virtually lost touch. When we did meet up again a few years ago (sadly at a funeral) I think she was quite staggered by how much I looked like my mother and how I had many of the same mannerisms and spoke in the same way too. By and large, I can’t really see it and perhaps I don’t want to, but she was adamant. Our mannerisms and character traits are probably something we are far less aware of than our appearance!
My daughters also apparently look pretty much like me, something they have always strenuously denied (I don’t know why, I’m not that much of a troll), and as they get older I can see in them personality traits of mine and they approach some things in the same way I would. So perhaps it is true that we can turn into our parents in some ways through genetics over which we have no control, but I’m damned if I’m going to turn into my mother through my behaviour as well.
I was always far closer to my Dad than my Mum, although I’m not sure I’d want to turn into him either. But for all his faults he was much more broad minded and, I think, prepared me better for life as an adult than she did. He had a greater experience of life and had more ambition, aspired (in a limited way) for better things and instilled many of the values which guide me today. I could talk to him about my troubles in a way I never could talk to my mother, who never understood or even tried to. In fact I’m not sure she was capable of understanding. I lost my Dad in 1985, and I miss him greatly.
We all have the capacity to think independently and to be our own person. What we ought to do is take the best of our parents and build on that to be an individual in our own right. We can’t do much about our appearance (short of radical surgery which, unless you have a hooter the size of Kent or a disfiguring wart right in the middle of your forehead isn’t to be recommended) but we can do something about how we live our lives and the values we instil into our own children. I don’t want to be a clone of previous generations, and neither do they.
We have a choice, and I am going to take it! If I don’t succeed, will someone shoot me?
I hope it's not possible for us to behave in the same way that our mother did - i would certainly tell you if i thought you were - but it is uncanny at how much you look like her and some of your little ways are like our mother. I too see her looking back at me in the mirror and i have to say don't like it. I have gone out of my way to make sure i don't follow in her footsteps - though that sounds awful i think you will understand why i say that. We certainly do have a choice and i did take it.
ReplyDeleteSomeone else that reads my blog! I didn't know you read it at all. Have you signed up as a follower?
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ReplyDeleteOoh dear, well this is an interesting blog, because I was adopted, so how does that figure?! Well, I didn't look like my adopted parents obviously and actually sadly in away, because I was sort of out on my own and felt deep down sub-consciously would actually quite like to have looked like a relative,and although I have three kids, even they don't look like me (they are probably very pleased), and seem to have virtually all Phil's genes. However, I do catch myself saying things that my mum would have said and I think OH NO!, I vowed I would NEVER say that to my children, eek! Yet, some of the things I hated them saying, doing, I see sense in now and just think, you can't put an old head on young shoulders. I am personality wise, absolutely nothing like my parents and actually I am grateful for that, because I do feel I am my own person and I am proud of what I have achieved through being the sort of person that I am. Funny thought though, somewhere, if she is still alive, there could be someone very much like me wandering about!SCARY!
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