I am not my mother.
When I was a teenager I wore that statement like a badge. Why I thought it was a crime to emulate the ways of the woman who gave me life, I’m not sure I’ll ever completely understand.
As a young adult I rejected the life my parents led. I thought it shallow and pretentious and I set out to arrange my existence in contradiction to theirs. (It would be many years before I realized that the person lacking the depth was me, and that the goal of being like my mother was in fact lofty and perhaps even beyond my reach.)
My mother’s house was immaculate. Not once during my childhood did we ever run out of toilet paper or toothpaste and no one ever had to go out at some ungodly hour to buy milk. Her organization was legendary. Every room was decorated to perfection and our home was a showcase of family photos and decorative art. I thought my mother’s obsessive list-making and clothes-folding and paper-filing was the key to understanding her generally anxious nature and I grew up believing that if I ignored details like those, I could relax.
It’s no revolutionary idea that when a woman has children she views her own mother through different eyes. What I remember now looks sharply different than the way it looked to me when I first left home. Her attention to detail that I once saw as incessant now looks like an undying will to provide a comfortable home. What once appeared to be obsession I now remember as commitment. Her need to get everything right and give everything a place provided my brother and I with a safe place where we always knew what to expect. Dinner was at the same time every night and there were always three courses and set tables. No one ever spent extra time looking for things because everything was always where it belonged. And both of my parents were always there to support me when I needed them.
To say that my house isn’t like hers isn’t even close to describing the situation. If I’ve figured out what’s for dinner by six o’clock, it’s been a good day. If we’re not ‘borrowing’ toilet paper from the neighbors (thanks Chris and Cyn) I declare victory. We spend far too many of our precious hours looking for things that were never put away (because they didn’t have a place to be put), and our clothes are always wrinkled. I’ve lived in this house for over eight years and I still have the paper shades on the windows that I put up for privacy when I moved in. My dishes don’t match and we don’t have towel racks in the bathroom. Dinnertime is a revolving door of boys. Some nights Jake is here, others he sleeps at Sean’s. Each morning when I wake, my first thought is—who slept here last night? I wonder what that must feel like for Quinn. I’ve accepted my divorce and take great pride in the true friendship that I maintain with Sean but I still mourn for Jake’s not having the family life that we wished for him. I know we are setting a good example and I believe that the more people who love him the better. But he still has to be away from one of his parents most of the time that he is with the other. I always got to have both of mine.
I know I’m not the first adult to realize that they’ve been influenced by a parent’s behavior to perform in the opposite way (there’s hope for my kids yet). But until recently I had taken pride in my laid-back brand of ‘housekeeping’. I felt that I was setting an example for my kids not to sweat the small stuff. I thought that I was focusing on filling other needs they had. But I was only partly right. While I do think I’ve managed to be more relaxed than my mother, I’ve surely not succeeded in avoiding anxiety. And though I think of my house as having a less than uptight atmosphere I’ve clearly not taught Jake how to be organized (Quinn is too young for me to have screwed up this part of his upbringing—yet). And while I’m teaching him the value of creating things with his own hands I’m not sure he has any understanding of how to respect his own things.
We are not very alike, my mother and me. I am calm where she gets tense. I prefer to be alone while she likes to be surrounded with friends. I like simple and plain and she tends towards frilly and pretty. I opt out where she participates. She doesn’t sit still and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. And all this is fine with me. What isn’t fine with me is that when it comes to how I run my house: I am not my mother.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Your mom sounds exactly like my mom (and Grammie, too!). I’m much more like you and am trying to embrace the "don’t sweat the small stuff" a bit more. Perhaps that’s my mantra for the summer. And on a side note….my stash doesn’t have 35 twelve inch squares so I’m hitting the store but as a matter of style and "how it all works out in the end" do I need 35 different prints, or can I make do with say, 7 different prints of 5 squares each? Maybe it doesn’t matter and I’m showing the perfectionistic side of me (like my mom)…..
Although it is nice to have an immaculate home …it takes a lot of hard work. I probably am like your Mum in that regard!?! I get SO uptight when things are not where they should be…it drives me nuts and I wish I was more relaxed about it!
Good post in terms of processing some stuff that needed sussed. I am the opposite of your situation to a point. My parents were clean, but not organized. They had so many projects, that to this day, the bathroom flooring is plywood, (19 years later)! I vowed never to live among projects and to always have a place for everything, so I could find it. So my parents style influenced me to go the opposite way. I do however think we are not clean freaks, right now, the toilets need a scrubbing, as the last time was 1-2 weeks ago? The floors are filled with our shedding wool rugs and other bits…, the clothes are spilling out of the laundry basket. But I will get to it this week, before my son’s birthday. We are organized and put together, but we are lived in a worn.
I get the post and I want to say the photos is beautiful! This is what I want my garden to look like one day, when I owe a plot of grass once more!
What Amy speaks is true, her Mom is awe inspiring in terms of home management. I’ve been in her Mom’s homes and lemme tell ya people they are a sight to behold. If I had to entrust a single person to create a home for me, it might very well be Amy’s Mom. Her taste is impeccable, and her skills as a hostess are tough to beat. A true class act.
I remember vividly when you moved into your first house you didn’t do much of the decorating with your Mom. I thought you were insane, but you explained that you’d end up with your Moms house if you weren’t careful. So true.
You sound like me in my Edith Beale post.
what a beautiful post. the past never leaves us. we just carry it along with us. and if we’re lucky, we may pick up some clarity along the way.
Your mom sounds like an amazing woman, and so do you! Don’t be too hard on yourself…I think kids will turn out how they were meant to turn out. My sisters and I are all completely different and each of us has a little bit of our mom in us, the good and the bad parts.
Beautiful post. I live very close to my parents (same city) and it is revealing to be growing older, and raising children, in their presence. Mothers, and parents, are such strong figures in our lives; I often wonder why I spent so many years developing in reaction to them, instead of in relation to them.
On a lighter note you are one resourceful momma – it’s never dawned on me to ask the neighboors for toilet paper. In the interest of discretion – and my delicately played reputation as a mom – I won’t fill you in on how I’ve managed the Mom!-we’re-out-of-toilet-wiper! crisis.
i loved reading your post… thank you for sharing. i can relate…
i love the quilt that your making for the quilt along, i can’t wait to get started!
Maybe we are twins seperated at birth. Your mom sounds just like mine. So if we did the opposite of our mom’s do you think our kids will be clean freaks? One can always hope!
This is very thought provoking for me. There are some ways I want absolutely WANT to be like my mother and other ways I don’t. I guess it’s just finding our own way and taking all the good we were given as children and going with it. And overcoming the other stuff.
Thanks for sharing!
Sorry, I am so behind on my blog reading! First, I love your circles your working on. Your a great teacher, you write well.
second, I Always run out of toilet paper, have the messiest closet and studio ever… hate making the bed or the dishes…. and often have to call my hubby coming home from work to pick up the one thing I forgot for a meal, because I never write anything down. ( I still can’t believe he married me) I find there’s always a little of my mother in me no matter how much I deny it… Heck, there’s me in B already….(scary)
I just do my best I can each day. one itty bitty step at a time….
HUGS
I tend to believe that the moment we start thinking of our parents as individuals with quirks and follies, we gain greater understanding of ourselves. What a wonderful realization for you! I love this post, gets me thinking about my own mother…
It’s amazing how much we are influenced by our mom’s – even in what we don’t do. Great post! I catch myself from time to time, thinking "don’t say that!" that’s what SHE would say. Always growing and learning
goodness gracious alivin’!
if i ever get to the point where my house is clean and neat the majority of the time, i will feel as though i have succeeded in life. if i get to the point where i stop beating myself up over it, i really will have succeeded in life.
I’ve been thinking about this home management stuff a lot lately…wondering what my family (of two!) suffers due to the lack of domestic skills I have. I mean, I can cook and create…but keep our home organized, stocked and clean on a day to day basis? That’s a whole other thing completely! Interesting to hear your thoughts on it in relation to your mother.
On a side note…I’m tempted by your circle quilt..love it, looks so fun, but it is such a busy summer. Grrrrrr! Maybe I’ll jump in with both feet one of these days, or maybe I’ll just cheer pool-side. Either way, fun to watch!
I think I have an idea about your circles not matching exactly, but I have to sit down and draft it to figure out how to explain it. It’s a pattern drafting thing…. Ok. Curiosity got the better of me. Did it. I’ll e-mail you my pattern illustration tomorrow.
p.s. We have 72-hour/emergency kits. I’m raiding them all the time for t.p. and whatever else we’ve run out of. If we ever have to evacuate the city due to a hurricane, I better pray I’ve restocked the t.p. in them!
Loved reading this post Amy. It reminded me of me and my daughter. We all need to make our own way, and can’t worry about pleasing everyone. We need to be happy with ourselves. Have a great 4th.
Loved this post. My mom struggles with this because her mother was so neat, and my mother is not. I try to be neater than my mother (and I succeed somewhat), but I’m still not as neat and willing to give up clutter as I feel I should be. However, I do not have quilts from either my grandmother or my mother, and my kids will have quilts and always be able to be wrapped in my love.
Interesting commentary. I not only relate to just about everything you said (I’ve never borrowed toilet paper from my neighbor), I feel a whole lot better about how clean my house is not. Thanks. Happy sewing!
Wow. This was such a good post. I can relate to much of it. Especially that feeling of looking at your older kids (in my case, 9 year-olds) and realizing that you have not taught them how to properly take care of their things. A therapist once said to me, some people like to cook, others like to clean. In other words, some crave orderliness and others crave creative enterprises. Sometimes I think the two are mutually exclusive.
At least that’s what I like to tell myself when the laundry is at waist-level.