It’s Mother’s Day, and despite what capitalist propaganda will tell you, today is most definitely not the one and only day of the year to really show your love and appreciation to the woman who gave you life. Ideally, you should be doing it every chance you get.
However, the rest of the marketing-speak that follows can be taken at face value – not the part about an expensive spa getaway, which, if you can afford, then by all means get that trip for your mom – but the other parts. The fact that there really aren’t any words that can truly express our gratitude for mothers and what they continuously do for us, and that the thought and effort we put into our words and gifts this Mother’s Day could mean so much to them.
Because it is Mother’s Day, it got us thinking back to our younger days, particularly to the perception we had of our mothers. We all have that memory of being a disgruntled teen swearing to themselves that they would never become like their mother; a few years later, in your mid-20s, you wonder on occasion, “am I becoming my mother, no way…right?”; and then you reach your 30s and the transformation is complete: “I am my mother!”
There’s actually some science behind this phenomenon; part of the answer can be found in contemporary neuroscience. According to research coming out of this field, we are programmed to develop through interactions with others and this is why early parental behaviour has such an impact on our psyches – parents and siblings are the main people that most infants and toddlers interact with. This internal programming is also one of the reasons we can change over the course of our lives – interactions with friends, teachers, other relatives, and lovers teach our brain new patterns, which can alter our relationships and our sense of self.
Clinical professor of psychiatry Daniel J. Siegel explains that our neurons seek familiar paths, especially when we are in a stressful situation. Siegel says that our neurons tend to flow in an established pattern. We can change those paths; but in certain situations, like when visiting with family, familiar interactions cause the neurons to quickly realign on old paths. This is also what happens when we hear ourselves using familiar phrases from our childhood, sentences we promised ourselves we would never say to our own children.
This is the experience many women we spoke to had, as they shared their experiences of slowly turning into their mothers, despite swearing up and down when they were younger that they would absolutely not, and even those who are truly different to their mothers in personality shared that they would often look in the mirror and see a familiar expression, one that is not their own however, stare right back, and they’d know for a fact they had seen it on somebody else’s face, many, many times.
Sayuri (27) shared that she still remembers her 17-year-old self announcing to her family that she would never be like her mother, that she would not be so obsessed with putting things back in order or constantly cleaning everything in sight. Sayuri said one morning when she was stepping out, she felt pure rage when she saw that her brother had left an uncovered glass on the kitchen counter, open to flies or whatever wanted access, and as she rinsed out the glass and put it away in a cabinet, she paused and had a moment of self-realisation: “Was it not just yesterday I was calling my mom out for having borderline OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)?”
Wathsala (31) recalled one of numerous occasions when she would stop her housemate to ask her if she packed an umbrella. She said that as a young girl her mother was absolutely obsessed with maintaining her fair complexion, and so she insisted that Wathsala carried an umbrella not only because it might rain but to protect her from the harsh Lankan sun, and she would always remind her to pack an umbrella and please use it. Today, even without the intention of wanting people to protect themselves from harmful UV rays or oncoming rainstorms, the question just bursts out of her. “I think it is one of those phrases I now use to express my affection for someone, when I care about someone; as hilarious as it may sound, I ask them if they’ve packed an umbrella!” she said.
It would seem that many young girls, while subconsciously internalising the way that their mothers showed them affection, are now using those experiences as their own love language. Of course, we were not always cool hard rebels, as some of us absolutely wished we could be our mothers, mostly when we were younger, before the teenage hormones set in. At the time, our moms were the most beautiful people in our lives and we wanted nothing more than to be exactly like them. Then, of course, we lose our way, but once again, there comes a time when we realise how awesome our moms actually are.
“I open my mouth, and my mother comes out!” said Prasadhi (32), sharing that she and her mom are different in many ways – her mother is incredibly organised while she herself is often frazzled and misplacing things often; her mom is a planner, and she herself is a procrastinator. While all of these things are traits she has carried with her all throughout her life into adulthood, after she had her daughter, she said that she started noticing a shift. “I started needing Ammi more and listening to her more. Also, I began to have more patience with her than I did before. Maybe it’s because I started getting a taste of my own medicine with my own daughter and I’ve somehow started to realise that my mom wasn’t so annoying after all.”
Prasadhi said that becoming a mom forces you to take on a whole other level of selflessness that you’ve never had before, and when you look back, you will see that that’s precisely who your mom was – she was selfless and she always put your needs first, before her own.
Many of the ladies we spoke to took a movement to truly think and reflect on all the ways they have become their mother, and many of them insisted on sharing that while they did not originally intend to, they had indeed become their mother, to some degree, and they realise now how absolutely brilliant their mothers actually are. Things that they never thought would change, have, and now they realise that “turning into my mom” isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Malithi (27) shared that while she thought of it often, and she and her friends often make fun of how they have all become “those aunties” – they love to sit together sipping wine and judging other people – while most of it is for the sake of a good laugh, there’s a lot of truth to emulating the ladies in our lives, particularly our mothers. She said that as a young girl she spent a lot of time with her mom at her workplace. She admired her mom’s work life, and she too chose to pursue a similar career. She said that often, when she picks up the phone, her mom’s clients would mistake her for her mother: “I sound so much like her, and it’s not that we look alike or normally sound the same, it’s the tone we both use; we have the same attitude making similar inflections in our voice.”
So much of who we are we get from our mothers. While as young children we couldn’t even fathom the thought of becoming like her – she who makes you wake up early, nags you constantly to do this or that, encourages you to study, and stays up with you when you are tired, sick, or sad – as time passes, you come to realise, thankfully, that despite however hard you tried to reject who she was, you have retained parts of her in you and you’re all the better for it. So trust us when we say, one day you will probably think to yourself “I’m turning into my mom, and I’m pretty proud of it”.
