A Friend Stopped By | 04/21/2009 1:23 pm

The Mommy Wars, by Lee Woodruff

The bestselling author on why she tries not to be her mother.

By Lee Woodruff

Lee Woodruff

Editor’s Note: Lee Woodruff is the author of the memoir Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress, just published by Random House. Visit her at www.leewoodruff.com.

There are a lot of things people can say that roll right off my back. But there is one phrase that makes my needle scratch across the record: "You are just like your mother." That one’s a real sphincter tightener for me. And when it comes out of my husband’s mouth, my fingers twitch and involuntarily curl into a fist. And for just an instant, I contemplate Lizzie Borden and channel Lorena Bobbitt.

I have spent a lifetime trying NOT to be my mother. Don’t get me wrong; I love her dearly. She has many amazing qualities as a person and a wife and nurturer. She did a great job raising three girls on a tight budget and with an often-traveling husband. She devoted her life to us. It’s just that there are things that I want to … branch out from … in order to be my own gal. Was that delicate enough?

I may be slightly more hip than my own mother since I blast Bruce Springsteen on the car radio and watch 'The Office.' But I’m still far from cool.

And yet, I’ve noticed that in the end biology is destiny. As much as we try to run from genetics, as much space as we try to put in between ourselves and those things we rebelled against, some of that nature and nature begins to trickle back in. Regardless.

Let me just cover a few bases. My mom is old-fashioned. She bemoans modern literature and The New York Times. She loathes any movies made since "Lawrence of Arabia" and she abhors rock ‘n’ roll. She was raised on classical music, and I grew up with worldwide symphonies playing on NPR as she prepared our dinner. “That’s AWFUL,” she’d exclaim as we blasted “Yes” or “Three Dog Night.” None of these singers, she pointed out, were classically trained. They were nasal, and furthermore the lyrics were treacle. I grew up feeling very defensive about the music we loved, the clothes we bought: the naval-skimming hip huggers and bare-midriff tops. My mother didn’t approve of so much of our generation. She was stuck in the ’50s.

But as I watch myself, and as those who love me watch me back, lo and behold there are multiple signs that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

“Change the station,” I implore my 17-year-old son as he blasts some mind-numbing rapid-fire rap song on the car radio detailing what some dude is gonna do to some gal.

“Granny!” he says, because he knows this will get me.

I listen closer, renewing my vows to keep an open mind.

“Yeah, OK. I guess ‘Tie-da-bitch-up-and-slap-her-around-till-she-begs-for-dawg-style’ are OK lyrics," I retorted. “I guess I can see the art form in that. But you know, everybody is somebody’s sister, daughter, maybe mother …” I look over at him but he is gone. He’s stuck his earphones on.

Then, there are all those years I ignored my mother’s pleas to use sunscreen. She would tape articles to the fridge about the damages of UV rays long before it was in vogue. She’d tsk tsk and shake her head as I sat outside in my hot-pink bikini with a foil-covered “Frampton Comes Alive" album, slathered in baby oil.

Now? I’m the village idiot chasing my four kids with a bottle of 50+ sun protection, like some sort of crusader dispensing holy water in a leper colony. Of course, as my kids scatter or fight back, I freeze in midair. I have become my mother, preaching and proselytizing about the ravages of the sun. “You’ll be sorry someday … you’ll get skin cancer,” I say. And then the words reverberate in my head. I have heard them somewhere before.

16 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I take that title personally, Lee, dahling, and am NOT one to be trifled with.

By Mommy Dearest on 04/30/2009 10:55 am

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I thought my mother was the only one who kept soap remains. She was also known to cut open tubes of toothpaste so that not a speck would go to waste. And yes, I find myself doing some of the very things that drove me most crazy about my mother. Not the toothpaste bit, though.

By Deena B. on 04/30/2009 4:44 pm

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My mother once said to me, "I know you very well-you’re just like me!"

I responded, "Mom, we have the same taste in clothes and home decor=but I have a little bit of Daddy’s hot blood which makes us different!

By Dorothy K on 04/30/2009 6:31 pm

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Good one.

By darcus grey on 05/08/2009 5:31 pm

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Oh I am definitly my mother’s daughter….looks, personality, habits. She has been gone 15 yrs now and I do miss her. Recently I was watching a video I took and I heard myself laughing…my heart startid beating so fast…..it sounded exactly I mean exactly like my mom…it was just so weird.

I never wanted to not be like her. I always knew she was wonderful, so funny, a great cook and hostess. Even in my teen years my friends loved to come over and sit around the kitchen table and chat with my Mom. And always so supportive of me. I was her most independent child and the only one who moved out on my own and not into a marriage. When I bought my first house at 24 and was struggling, she would visit and after she left I would always find a 20 dollor bill hidden under the coffee pot or place matt. I think she didnt want to embarrass me that I needed help. And she would always deny that she did it. I was a lucky girl to have Lauretta as my Mommy.

By Paula Casagrande on 05/01/2009 8:11 am

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Mommy Wars? I personally find an element in this title already suggesting division, disagreement, dislike, picking apart — add your own words — that seem to invite the suggestion that . . . God forbid, that we could actually love and admire our mothers and hope to grow up, not like them, as each of us is her own person, but strengthened by her admirable characteristics.

Has everyone else picked their mothers apart? Has no one else always admired their mothers, found little to fault and much to praise? Was I was the special lucky one — or was there something in the water in my neighborhood that helped with the great genes my friends’ mothers also seemed to have? Our mothers did not raise their voices, demand, argue, and it was a joy when every home had an open door and a lovely woman behind it that made this child next door feel like her own also. Looking back, do I think this was idyllic? No way. It was normal where I lived.

I am proud to say that I was my mother’s daughter. . . and if she is responsible for the woman I am, then I thank her for it. I like to think that, as my own person, I made my own life beautiful and wonderful - at least in my own eyes. But if having a mother who believed the sky was the limit for each of us and proved it in her own life, if the example of a mother who was not a housewive but instead a woman that mixed the joys of success with huge dollops of helping others until her death made me "a follower" — well, then I did not thank her enough and now cannot.

If I could, I would fill her life with thanks …as well as much more openly exhibited love that I - in those years when marriage and family took precedent for so long - often did not stretch out to her in words as I should have. But that is hindsight.

I still think of myself as my own person - unique in that way. But if others see my mother in me in a big way, consider me very very proud.

By joan larsen on 05/04/2009 9:13 am

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Are you sure that you are being completely honest? Most teenage girls rebel against their parents. This is part of growing up. It’s our way of establishing our identity. Did you say that your mother never uttered a harsh word? Maybe you think that living with a saint is easy, but I think it has its drawbacks. My mother was feisty, outspoken, beautiful and dynamic. In fact, she taught her daughters to appreciate our beauty and always be grateful. She did not criticize our looks. At an early age, we learned to be confident and to speak our minds. This trait was nurtured and encouraged. As one of four girls, my sisters and I are independent and forthright. I’m not sure we hold back or try to hide our thoughts or feelings. On the other hand, my mother taught us to respect our husbands and make sure they felt loved. She encouraged us to put our marriage and romance first — even over our children. She said that if our marriage was sound, our children would flourish. I think these words are wise. And she didn’t whisper her opinions. She was terribly vocal. She also raised independent children. I guess we emulated her strength. We also learned to be a little selfish and to put ourselves first. After all, a happy wife makes the entire family happy!

By Pamela Stone on 05/07/2009 2:19 am

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Hi Pamela … No I actually did not rebel… and my children did not either … they were at the height of excelling at that age and again, HONESTLY, we had no problems nor did their best friends. As for my mother and her impact on my teen years, I had a situation where I had graduated from high school at 14 — one of "those" you might say — and I was then gone — off to college at a Big Ten college where I saw my widowed mother only on short vacations. I was independent pretty much — but at that time there was many rules for college so we didn’t get into much trouble - and met my husband at 17, married at graduation, worked in marketing - my major, had my all my kids by 22 and lived across the country from my mother - who I adored. All your wonderful statements your mother made, I saw in my own home and passed on to my children - one who is a prime example of how good it worked for the next generation == when she also writes for WOW. By the way, my mother also saw that the couple and their time together was most important — as that is how her life was when my dad died - and saw to it that we had lots of away time, i.e. second honeymoons, and we thrived and prospered and are still the most lovey couple around. It has all worked - and shows even in the next generation big time - so, I would not kid you, no harshness, no raised voices, but lots of joy.

By joan larsen on 05/07/2009 3:01 am

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The term, "mommy wars" is not one I care for either. It points to the fact (to me) that women in this country still lack much solidarity with each other (men have plenty of solidarity with each other.) Women have been divided and conquered (not by themselves initially) but seem to be continuing the process now. Which is why this website is a good thing. Get a lot of women together and you’ll see changes happening. Look at the stats where governments mandate that there must be gender parity in their congresses or parliaments. Women there cross the aisle for the common good in ways that (for whatever reason) men don’t tend to.

In a culture that doesn’t particularly value mothers (the culture says one thing, then acts differently)—I mean, mothers don’t get paid a dime for what they do, they can’t get benefits like healthcare or life insurance for the work they do. We’re supposed to do it because of "love" or "maternal instinct." But I’m getting off-track. What I wished I’d learned to do early on is to look at my mother (both my parents really) and instead of focusing soley on what I didn’t like, what I didn’t want to emulate, finding what I did want to (and there was plenty to find there.) Same with fathers—we often date or marry men who have negative characteristics of our fathers, rather than positive. That old repetition compulsion thing—-find one like Dad (in negative ways) and surely he’ll love me…surely this one will. And to assume that saying, "I’ll never be like Mom" in this way or that (without consciously looking at both positives and negatives) is a way to repeat the past that we didn’t care for. Glad I finally woke up and saw my mom for her positives—and when I hear now (even if my husband says it) "you’re so much like your mom" I usually take it as a compliment.

By Susan S on 05/04/2009 1:46 pm

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Joan-I adored my mother. She was a wonderful parent and a role model in every way. Well, almost. That’s why I say that I was like her in many ways but different in others. Different is not always bad. One thing I loved about my mother was that she had absolutely no sense of humor. If you told her you were telling her a joke, then she was ready to smile, otherwise things would go right past her. Because of this she was funny! On my parents’ 50th anniversay party I got up and told true stories about my parents. Everybody roared with laughter. My mother’s response was, "Well, when you tell them it’s funny." She never understood that she was a funny lady!

By Dorothy K on 05/04/2009 1:49 pm

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Dorothy … whoever is flawless, let her cast the first stone. We all have things about us that others are not as happy with — it is life and it is human nature. There is no perfect person - unless in the eyes of someone who loves than beyond belief. We don’t know the private lives of anyone else and what may hold the funny part we have back. . and may never know. But as we hope people will accept our good points and like us in spite of our bad points, I think we should always look to the positive. And there is no one that can tell me that we don’t have "positives" and more. Not only should we acknowledge them but far better than that, we should express them to those involved and watch them blossom and beam. Not wanting to be anything like your mother - and saying it - is insulting. How would we feel in a reverse situation? So, Dorothy, I am so happy that there are others here who can accept what our mother is or was and say it in a post like this. And you have done so.

By joan larsen on 05/04/2009 3:47 pm

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"Mommy wars" might be a strong but the mother/daughter relationship can be rather complicated. Much more so (I think) than that between father/son. Of course, I don’t have much experience with that relationship so I could be off base there.

By Deena B. on 05/04/2009 2:50 pm

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I just returned from FL where I gathered with my brothers and sisters (9 of us) to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. We surprised her and that was the best gift possible. I decided many years ago not to say anything against my mother - I know she did her best, she loved us unconditionally and therefore I cannot be critical. I am hoping that my children take the same position in the future with regard to my mothering; I did/am doing my best.

By J Holmes on 05/04/2009 7:44 pm

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I agree with J Holmes. Our home was far from perfect and I know my parents made many mistakes, but I’m sure we all do as parents. We can only hope that our children will forgive us as we forgive our parents. I never wanted to be like my mom and that motivated me to learn and be different. Then once I had my own children, I did some of the very good things that my mother did with us and loved it the whole time. Memory making things like reading aloud in the car on long trips, sitting around the campfire singing and just talking about what we had seen during the day on our camping trips. My mother was not perfect in other ways but she was perfect in that we never once questioned that she loved us through and through. In that way, I hope to God that I’m just like her.

By K M on 05/08/2009 11:41 am

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I don’t have my mom around, to have any wars with she died when I was in my early 20’s. I do have 2 children 1 of each in there 20’s now.

One day when I was going through the teen years, I was frustrated and my Dad cleared everything up for me. He said " Don’t worry about (Whatever it was ) when kids hit the teen years they should just fence off Wyoming and not let them out until they’re 18."

I’m 48 and I made a comment to my 22yr old boy that he probably still can’t throw a football and I’ll always throw better. Now I have all his friends coming over tonight because that was a challenge.

God help me! I’m alot of talk! Just be yourself, and have fun!

By Bobbie R. on 05/08/2009 12:21 pm