I’m just kind of curious. As the days go by, my girlfriend turns a little more into her mother every day. I’m just kind of curious, is this an oddity or do most women become their mothers as they get older?
No.
My ex-wife turned into her father.
My current wife turned into her mother.
I have two sisters. One went one way, one went the other.
Of my women friends whose mothers I also knew, more have turned into their mothers, but not all.
Some of us do, in some ways. You can’t make a blanket statement one way or the other.
I know of certain traits, practices and attitudes my mom had that I value to this day. She was decades ahead of her time in many ways. She valued education, achievement, and personal fulfillment for women. Her own circumstances precluded her from acting in her own behalf, but she was determined that her daughters would have the chance to do whatever they wanted to. She pushed my father as far as he could go, too.
As another example, she also valued equal rights for minorities, which was definitely not part of the world she grew up in, but she encouraged us in the conviction that a different color skin was not important; what is important is the person within.
My sister and I both have adopted her love of handcrafts like quilting, knitting, crochet and tatting.
However, she had certain fixed ideas about things that I have discarded. It is not necessary for me to arise early in the morning on weekends, or to have supper on the table promptly at 5:00 p.m., although for her, it was. My parents also were much more restrained about money than I have become.
The biggest shock to me was a few months after her death, when I had my long hair cut short. I looked in the mirror one morning thereafter and holy cannoli, I looked just like my mother.
It’s not surprising that there will be physical similarities; after all, your girlfriend got half her inheritance from her mother. Nor is it surprising that attitudes and values may be shared. Don’t you carry with you many of your parents’ ideals? It’s something to talk about, though, if there are things about that which bother you.
I find this question to be ever-so-slightly misogynistic and insulting. Why can’t a woman just turn into herself? How come nobody ever wonders if men turn into their fathers? Are women not individuals who can make their own choices and have their own opinions? Why are people still making generalizations like this?
For the record, I’m nothing like my mother, and the older I get the more I’m not like her. I’m my own person with much different experiences and attitudes. I do look a lot like her, but as stated above, that would be because I got half of my genes from her.
Oh gawd, I hope not.
Oh yes.
I look so much like my mother people I had never met before greeted me by name at my uncles funeral. (A few offered to tell me some stories about my Mom and Daytona Beach, but I never got to hear them. Damnit.)
I find myself with a lot of her traits. She was very picky about being late, and I cannot remember once in my life when she was late. She would understand if you were going to be late, but you should call. If I didn’t call, I got in trouble for not calling, not for being late.
To this day I am very seldom late for anything. I always have a book in my car because I am early often enough to want to have something to do while I was waiting. A few months ago, I was going on a hockey road trip with some friends. I had to stop for gas on the way to their house, and it took longer than usual so I was running about 10 minutes late. I got a call from one of the friends I was meeting, who was almost in hysterics. She was sure I had been in an accident, because in the 6 years she’s known me I’ve never been late once.
I was very proud of my mother, and turning into her is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. My husband doesn’t mind either, 'cause he loved my mom.
In my family, some of the more noticeable traits skipped a generation.
My grandma hated confrontation, especially about little things. I’m like that. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
My mom never missed a slight and would raise a ruckus whenever she could, and my daughter is a bit like that. She has a hard time letting go, forgiving and forgetting.
Two of my boys are like me, and the other is like my mom, so sometimes boys turn into their mothers. 
I don’t have a problem with it; the OP is wondering whether his girlfriend’s experience is unusual or common. A number of other people responded with their personal experiences, which are pretty varied.
As for me, I physically resemble my maternal grandmother, and have a personality similar to my father’s. I’m very close to my mother, but the older we get, the less we have in common.
Well, I did say “ever-so-slightly”, it’s not like it enrages me or anything. I do have to wonder why, in this day and age, woman are assumed by some people to revert as they age to “whatever their moms are”, instead of being individuals that are just who they are.
Despite vehement, tearful, and entirely passionate pleas to the heavens above that I would never become like her, lo, one day, while babysitting some children, I opened my mouth and
because I said so, that’s why
came out of my mouth, and the transformation had begun.
Probably for the same reason that some men (myself included) are gradually turning into their fathers.
I bet your mother said the same thing.
My mother advised me rather strongly NOT to do that a few weeks ago; she said it’s what happens to most people. I think the risk is low: I tell my parents that I have a very even blend of both their flaws.
The boring reality is that a lot of people are somewhat like their parents anyway. I can imagine that once you have kids of your own, your end up copying your parents that much more. “Women turn into their mothers,” if not a little misogynistic or patronizing, is definitely trite.
No, I don’t think so at all.
Keep saying thing like that and I am going to beat you into next week and make you walk back naked. Go do something constructive, like clean your room! Have you even looked at it latley. I am ashamed of you. What woul… :eek:
I haven’t turned out like my mom. Years of therapy helped me not to.
That being said, Hallgirl 1 is more not like me than she is like me. (Make sense?) She’s compassionate and kind where I’m impatient and cynical. She will gracefully hand over her last dollar because she knows how much you want an ice-cream, while I never admit that I even have a dollar.
She’s a much better person than I’ll ever be, but oddly enough, she says she admires me most of all the people in her life. Go figure.
One reason I never had children is the fear I would turn into my mother. I’d die first.
Just to up the gender-neutrality level, I’ve been told I’m the spitting image of my maternal grandfather, which is pretty cool given the varying family legends about his awesomeness.
And fortunately for everyone, my dad resembles no one in his immediate ancestry in thought or deed.
And my mom is turning into my grandmother by the day. =P
I think I’m more like my paternal grandmother, except for the whole snake-mean thing. Oh, and the cleanliness being next to godliness thing. And the getting up early thing. And the sharecropper thing with eight kids and an absent shiftless husband. Also, the dead thing.
Yes, but only if you feed them after midnight.