Mothers

and daughters

How many times did my mother say to me, warn me, “One day you’ll know what this is like.” Whether we were fighting over a boyfriend or she was nagging me to eat my carrots or do my chores, this was her constant lament. I didn’t understand why what I was doing or not doing caused her such frustration, she seemed unreasonable. Then I became a mother.

It is a beautiful cycle of life, to have our mothers shift from dictator, oppressor and vegetable lord to role model. I find myself doing as she did, saying as she said and realize that in her rules was her love.

“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.”
– Cardinal Mermillod