It’s too late to be like my mother. I broke too many rules. However, I am doing exactly what she was doing, helping to take care of her grandchildren. Since my daughter left her husband six months ago. I have been helping with the kids, a 10y old girl, 11y old boy. What goes around sure, does, come around. Mom was sedentary for the most part. I workout, and take walks on the beach. She smoked all the way into her seventies which ultimately killed her. I dreamt of her the other night, what a treat it was, her face so beautiful, her skin smooth and soft. I kissed her cheeks, and my father was there too. She always helped me, and other family in need, and I find myself pulling off of that memory to tame my temper when I lose patience. Or find myself saying, “what about my life?” I do have her easy going spirit, but my fathers temperament too. I hired a baby sitter to watch the kids for a few weeks or months, and came back home. Sunday we will be celebrating new doors opening, and lots of love for one another. I will not fear change, so universe, bring it on!

Am I like my mother? I hope not. She was an intelligent woman—an English teacher—who completely surrendered her autonomy to my controlling, depressed father. Because she had given up control of her own life, she thought that she should be able to control mine. It was a source of constant conflict between us. She always had to be the center of attention, and had no empathy for anyone else’s feelings—everything was about her. “You’re pregnant? Everyone will know that I’m old enough to be a grandmother.” “You’re sick? What will happen to me?” I was their only child, and I married and got out of their house as soon as I could. I have raised my children by doing exactly the opposite of what I thought my mother would have done in any given situation, and it has worked well. My mother died at age 93, five years ago, five years after my father’ death from Alzheimer’s. Her last years were filled with anger and resentment and regret, all of which were directed at me. When she died, I was 60 years old, and I could only breathe a huge sigh of relief, and hope that I wouldn’t turn into her. It saddens me that we didn’t have a good relationship. I ease the sense of loss by loving my husband, my sons and daughters in law, and my grandchildren.

Sunday, Mother’s Day, is my birthday. Until my mother died two years ago, at the age of 94, we spent the last twenty Mother’s Day’s together even though we lived in different cities and she was in assisted living and then a nursing home the last six years of her life. I hope I am like her: I haven’t been lucky with many things in my life, but I was lucky when I got the best mother. She supported her family of five when she was fifteen; she finished school at night. She never complained about it and that seemed to set the stage. She faced hardship and tragedy but was wildly resourceful way and always survived with humor. When she retired at seventy she started doing volunteer work; twenty hours a week. She didn’t drive and took bus’s in the freezing Buffalo weather. When she had a stroke at eighty eight and had to enter an assisted living complex she asked me two questions: “Can I afford it and how can I keep working?” Since she had been volunteering at the assisted living residence for twenty years and they still wanted her, I was able to say yes. She was very distressed at the eulogy for her sister and told me she didn’t want one. She had me type up what she did want and told me she’d come back and get me if I didn’t cooperate. I was often approached by strangers who would tell me of the “random acts of kindness” she had given them. She never mentioned them. She had a wild sense of humor; on Mother’s Day we would rent “Throw Momma from the Train.” My brother died at thirty and she grieved for years but she evolved to the point where she felt only joy for his life; what a gift to see. She taught me to take joy in the smallest things. She helped through many horrible events and I’d say to her:”I don’t know what I’ll do after you’re gone.” She’d get really angry and would say I’d do just fine. And now when I have a problem I simply ask her. There’s always an answer. Thank you mother.

I’ll never be my mother…she is one of a kind….I just hope I inherited her motherly qualities…

I certainly am as fat as she ever was plus I look rather like her. However, personality wise I have striven most of my life to NOT be like my mother. She was a very difficult person and caused others a lot of pain. For my own well being I found it necessary to sever contact with her about 15 years before she died. When I received word of her death, my first thought was “the world is now a safer place”. This was a sad situation and I now believe she had a serious personality disorder that was undiagnosed.

No, she was my mother but she was not maternal.Women in her day didn’t have the choices we have today.I don’t think she wanted to be a mother.I have tried to be a better mother to my children and grandchildren. I learned some things from her that were valuable & I am greatful for that.

In some ways Yes, I am like my mother,Esp, after having my children i am exactly turning into my mother.I have her words, a lot of times i saying something to my daughters which my mother usually says to me.

I find myself using a lot of my Mother’s funny/corny expressions as I grow older. But she was 5’2”, top weight 98 pounds. I’m 5’8, take after my 6’2” dad, and need to lose 20 pounds. My mother entered nursing school in the late ’20s, when she was seventeen. She was exceedingly good at nursing and worked for a top physician in Beverly Hills and Hollywood whose patients were mostly movie stars and wealthy people. She told me about one of her experiences: the patient was a very wealthy man, used to running the show and having his way in all things. He was recuperating, a grouchy time for many people, especially men. On this particular evening, after dinner, my mother did everything possible to make her patient comfortable, then she sat down to read the newspaper. He noticed she was doing “nothing” for him at the moment and was quite rude about it. My tiny, very fiesty, Irish mother’s response: “I get paid for what I know, not for what I do”. She also told me that nurses at that time were required to back out of the room if there was a doctor present. It was a Catholic hospital. Think things are a bit better now. One of the things I most appreciate about my mother is that she taught me — and my daughter — to love beautiful things. I’ve enjoyed that quality in myself, my life and in my own child. My Mom was very intelligent, very fey and very much afraid of the big wide world. My Dad was killed in automobile accident when I was four, so all the responsibility fell to her. She was definitely not up to it. Her solution: she worked seven days a week, month after month and put me in a boarding school. I didn’t see too much of her. It took me 20 years to unlearn the fear my mother taught me and another 20 to rebuild myself into something more useful and pleasing to myself. It took me another 20 years to realize that Maggie had done the very best she could. I think all mothers do that, even though sometimes it really isn’t very good at all. Hard lesson to learn and acknowledge. Maggie was a great grandmother; spoiled my children something awful.

I don’t know if I have “turned into my mother”. I haven’t spoken to her in over thirty years. She married my father because they got pregnant with me and they both never quit blaming me for ruining their lives. I walked away and have never wanted to go back.

These posts are making me cry. I miss my mom a lot. I’m 44 years old and still a big baby. After she died I had this weird urge to reach out to her on the internet. I’d turn on my computer and feel the pull of cyberspace. It’s power and magic. I knew it was bizarre but I started a blog anyway. it was called “hi mom” and I told her all the things I’d have told her if she were alive. It helped. then one day I got locked out of it and couldn’t get back on. Anyway.. i’m only 4 years older right now than she was when I was born. she was born during the depression and I was born at the beginning of the sixties. that alone dictated we would be very different. But mostly… the fact that I was loved well by my mother and she wasn’t dictated our biggest differences. She was starved figuratively and literally. I was fed. She grew sad and bitter and I grew confident and optimistic. She loved me for that. I loved her for it to.

I hope not. Even though she had three children, my mother always put my father first. He got angry if she didn’t so I only remember my own pain of being low on her priority list. I was a goody two-shoes and until I left home spent way too much time trying to be perfect so she (and my father) would notice me other than when they needed me to do something for them.

I have been thinking about this very thing quite alot recently, when my husband said to me, ” You sound just like your Mother when you complain like that.” Well, that made me feel terrible, but I realized it was true. She is a complainer, a nagger, a martyr, thinks she’s better than anyone, racist and elitist, and still impatient at 75 years old. I don’t know if it comes from being the middle child, or what, but we never had a close relationship. I didn’t hate her, she wasn’t abusive, neglectful or horrible, we just were never close. We both have quick tempers and see that in each other. She chose to have a career, first for financial reasons, and then decided she loved being a career woman and kept up with it. I chose to be a stay at home Mom of 5 kids, and she has never approved. She has said repeatedly that she feels sorry for women who “have” to stay home with their kids, and that all women are so much happier when they work outside the home. She has never once told me she thinks I am a great Mom or that I’ve done a good job. In fact, when I told her I was pregnant with my 5th child, she said “Holy shit”. However, to be fair, I’ve never told her that I am proud of her career choice. She never seemed like she liked being a Mom, but she always loved her job, which possibly made me feel less important to her? I was always glad she had something she liked and that made her feel satisfied, however it made it so much more obvious that being a Mother was not a priority to her. Do I sound like a stubborn, whiney child? In the end, I tell my kids repeatedly how proud I am of them, how much I love them, and that while it wasn’t always easy financially for us for me to be a stay at home Mom, it was always my first choice. I’ve never found anything I liked better than being at home with them. My oldest daughter is having her first child in less than 2 months and I am so excited for her, she’s made the choice to be a stay at home Mom, even though she went to school and has a degree. I’ve already told her yet unborn little guy how lucky he is to have her for a Mom. The one great thing she taught me was to stick up for being a woman, not to put up with any man putting me down. In fact she was fanatical about it. It’s annoying at times, but it’s about the only way I’m glad I’m like her.

Yes, i have offically turned into my mother. I am the mother of 3 young children. I cut the coupons, put the spit on their little faces when it is messy, and give a million hugs just because I love them. I miss my mother so much but I am so thankful that she raised me to be the wonderful mother that I am. My children call me Super MOM. I told them it is just unconditional love that I have for them. They are the lights that god gave us to keep us focused.

oh my…this is a hard day. I’ve just learned from my mother’s nursing home that she is fading . We live 10 hours away and are going tomorrow morning. My adult kids are coming with us. My mother is a very difficult woman. She was raised by a raging alcoholic mother and a verbally and physically abusive father. She didn’t learn good parenting. However I still have some nice memories of her. Few but some and I’ll cling on to those. I also know that I have treated her with respect and that makes me proud. My mother was a fighter in her own way and that is one trait I have learned from her and give thanks for that. Rock on Mom I’m sure you’ll organize God. Have fun!

Eve, I got that same call a little over two years ago. I was told not to rush, I wouldn’t make it. Three months later, after packing and repacking (seasons changed) I made a decision when I saw her this time. She could no longer speak and I didn’t know if she really knew me, but her bright blue eyes burned through me. I told her:”I’m fine, aunt——-is fine, uncle——is fine.” She died withing twenty four hours. And I felt she died at peace. My prayers are with you.