A loyal reader (and buyer) asks:
I love my mother to death. But the prospect of me ultimately turning into her also scares me to death. Frankly, I do not think she would like it either. What should I do? Please don't say "do nothing" because, I have thought that one through, and the model of my mother is so vivid that if I do nothing, I will ultimately turn into her. Please also do not recommend "try to die soon so you will never catch up with her." That would be a social welfare negative solution because neither she nor I would like it. What should I do, assuming I cannot really change her? Thank you very much in advance.
An answer as brutal as mine can only go beneath the fold...
Ask your mother what she did to avoid turning into her mother!
Who, after all, has faced a more similar problem? Of course do exactly what she says.
Alternatively, probably you are already like your mother. Almost certainly you are very much like some time-slice version of your mother.
How would the younger version of your mother have felt about how she turned out, if that younger version could look ahead in time and see her 2007 self? Your words suggest "not so happy," when you write "the prospect of me ultimately turning into her also scares me to death. Frankly, I do not think she would like it either."
So deviate from her, and deviate from how she would have felt at your age.
In other words, embrace turning into your mother.
Seriously.
You can’t really turn into your mother at like ages because you and she grew up in totally different worlds. But you may find yourself after many years seeing the point to some of her ways and values.
My daughters aren’t doing things the way I did at all. But
???
But you won’t turn out like your mother. You’ll turn out like a combination of your mother and your father, as influenced by a different environment.
That is, after all, what this sex thing is all designed to do.
Genetics suggest you will be more a composite of your grandparents.
One of the most basic tenets of psychology is that we dislike most in others the things we like least about ourselves.
Google the following article by Marco Cipriani,Paola Giuliano and Oliner Jeanne titled “Like Mother Like Son?Experimental Evidence on the Transmission of Values from Parents to Children”.This article discusses some issues like tranmission of “traits,values,trust, propensity to cooperate and to free ride on others” etc.
Start having sex with your father.
Thank you folks, I’ll be here all week.
do they share a chromosome?
Figure out who/what you want to be like(its easy to figure out what you dont want…think about it) and work on that.
When i was younger, like 13-17, i was determined to become nothing like my mother. i thought that everything she did was a plot against me and everything she did was wrong. now at 21 i have found that as our friendship grew closer i am becoming more like her and suprisingly ok with it. i now respect and understand her decisions from when i was young. i can only hope to be like my mom. i am like my dad in some ways, but when i talk to my mother it sounds as if im talking to myself. its ok with me if i turn out more like her. she raised me well and i can only hope to do as well as she did when i raise my own kids.
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