See wonderful cartoons at this site.( bizarro comics.com)
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want, and then advise them to do it.
Who are you? No doubt you’d like to think of yourself as unique, the end result of a shiny one-time blueprint used only to to bring YOU into the world. I used to feel that way, special and self-assured, until I reached the age when I would look at myself in the mirror and see my mother looking back.
I realize that my mother and I only share 50% of my DNA, but as a daughter I have come to understand that a mother has considerably more influence in a daughter’s life than just what goes into the hard drive. In fact, the soft ware that a mother gives her daughter is equally potent. In medicine I see mother/ daughter relationships and whether they are deeply loving or testy they are always intimate, intense,vulnerable, emotional and complicated. For many women it is the singular most determinant relationship of a lifetime. When conflict arises in these relationships it almost always fuelled by disagreements over power, authority and acceptance.
I think for every female our mother is the anvil upon which we forge ourselves to create our own identity, she is the whetstone for your blade, or if you prefer a movie approach, the mother figure is an avatar of colossal power. During my formative years I spent extraordinary effort honing my individuality against the grain of whom I perceived my mother to be ( I was wrong, as I discovered in later life when we were inseparable.) and it was my criticisms of her that provided the motivational grist. I wanted to be better, to be different, to be more.
The idiocy of rejecting everything a parent is and has to teach is, of course, called adolescence. Some are brave enough to call it individuation. Some never leave this turbulent purgatory and do not know that adolescence can extend far beyond the teen years and even into old age. The best part about being older is the development of an understanding, it is the quiet acceptance that your mother is/was just another flawed human being after all, and the struggle for every woman is recognizing that our mother is not always right, but neither is she always wrong. She may come bearing criticism but she also comes to you bearing gifts.
I think that the true definition of being a woman comes at the age when you stop blaming your mother for all that is wrong in your life. It is true that a mother’s influence is profound, but until that magic moment when you step up to the plate and say, “ This is my life and I am responsible for it”, you are not an adult. Without this acknowledgement you are never in charge.
When I look I the mirror I may see my mother but more importantly, I see myself. Although she is now gone, she is as integral a part of me as an arm or a leg, but I no longer see those parts we share as a cross to bear. I see them as gifts from my mother, recognized and valued and as well, I see more, qualities that she did not possess. Athleticism, determination, independence, leadership- these are characteristics I possess different from her template, that I developed in adolescence to escape from her gravity, but I possess them only because she was the whetstone for my blade.On further reflection I see things that belong to me alone; happiness, contentment, a stable family, a long standing marriage and good health. I realize that I have become more than the sum of the parts of me that are both my mother and myself and that in my small way, I have changed our collective history.
Related articles
- Mother-daughter relationships often improve, strengthen as we age (utsandiego.com)
- Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/An-Excerpt-from-Too-Close-for-Comfort-Linda-Perlman-Gordon-and-Susan-Morris-Shaffer/3#ixzz2cuwRqgOU—and this tight bond can lead to both great tension and great friendship. In many ways, Deborah says the mother-daughter relationship runs parallel to romantic love relationships. “It is very intense and you experience it as extremely intense,Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Understanding-Mothers-and-Daughters#ixzz2cux3Hjx8
one of the more sensitive issues between mothers and daughters is giving and receiving criticism. Comments about the other’s hair, clothes and weight can often lead to conflict
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Understanding-Mothers-and-Daughters#ixzz2cuxLUNGE
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/An-Excerpt-from-Too-Close-for-Comfort-Linda-Perlman-Gordon-and-Susan-Morris-Shaffer/1#ixzz2cuxa0mQM
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Am-I-Turning-into-My-Mother-Dr-Vivian-Diller#ixzz2cveg6Wat
Medicamusae 
Very nicely put! I do wish that I had developed that understanding when I was much younger (or maybe I am only hoping that my daughter will!). I cherished my mother as I became older and understand now how much our relationship meant. I wish that it could have lasted longer.