I'm Not Like You

             
This week has been....interesting, challenging, exhausting. More and more, I get comments about how much my 11 year old daughter looks like me. On three occasions this week alone. Someone remarked that she is "my twin". Another person called her my "mini-me". Someone else that "WOW! You and your daughter look exactly alike."

I don't think this is entirely accurate. Sure, we share some resemblances but I don't necessarily think that she is a spitting image of me. I see so much of my husband in her. Still, it makes my heart smile. I did make her from scratch, after all. When people tell me that she looks just like me, I smile and thank them. She is not so gracious. She gets offended.
               
I'm like, What?!?!
                  
We went in a store today and this happened again. We sit down in the car and she is like, "Why does everyone say I look like you? I don't."
"Honey, I don't think they are trying to say that you look like a 30-something year old woman. They are just trying to say that you and I have similar features. That's all."
"I still hate it."

It gives me pause. I was not raised by my biological mother. When I was her age, I probably couldn't have picked her out in a crowd. I knew her name, the state that she lived in, and the few tidbits my father knew but that was all. It might disgust her when people make comments like that but to me it is the ultimate compliment. YES! You cannot deny that she is my daughter because she is here with ME and that she has never known what it is like to be separate from me. What she takes for granted, I consider very lucky.

Besides the fact that she hates that she looks like me, her new thing is that she "doesn't want to be like me". She says it constantly. If we go shopping and I pick out an outfit and she doesn't like it she'll say, "I'm not like you. I don't like the things you do."

She thinks that the person that I am now is the person that I have always been. She thinks that I don't understand what it's like to be in middle school. I don't try to convince her that I do. It would be pointless and this is a different time anyhow. There are many things that I don't understand but there are many things about adolescence that transcend time for sure.  We were talking about something a few months ago and she said to me, "Well, I'm sure 6th grade was easy for you." She meant it too.

I thought, if you consider wearing black lipstick and wishing the floor would open up and swallow me - then 6th grade was a breeze. 

                                   

She literally thinks I was a miniature version of who I am now. She thinks I wore knee length dresses to school everyday and came home and baked cookies. In her head, I was a 12 year old Betty Crocker.

I don't understand where she gets this idea that I want her to be like me. Probably because I won't let her dye her hair crazy colors or get 8 piercings up her ear. "I'm not a prep like you mom..." I now suggest the opposite of what I think she should do.

"You should definitely not clean your room," is the quickest way to get her to clean it. haha.

Last year, two years ago, I would have been offended. Now I get it. She is tying to separate herself from us. Form her own identity. We are the beginning of this process that will take many years to complete. I'm sure it will be like a dance where she will need to be close and then separate, close and then separate.

I have a degree in Human Ecology. Which I always thought was a stupid degree. In my program I took courses on human growth and development, psychology, parenting, marriage & divorce, human sexuality, aging, family finance. But now I don't think it's such a stupid degree. I find it fascinating. At this time in her life, it's like my college textbooks manifested. I'm like, I remember my professor talking about this!

I have stopped being sad about my children growing up. It is bittersweet for sure. I have accepted the reality of it, surrendered myself to it. Embraced it. I've learned through the years that it's pointless to look back and yearn for the way things used to be. I'm learning to be present, enjoy the moment RIGHT NOW and look to the future.

What a delicate balance it will be to help her have the freedom she needs to become her own person and gain independence but still have boundaries to keep her safe. To make sure we have an open line of communication. I feel entirely ill-equipped but who really is ready for this part, you know?

This age is just so hard. It's a huge transition. Everything is different suddenly. You are learning all the things. This is the age where you start to figure out that your parents are simply human and that adults really don't have a clue either. No one gets out of adolescence unscathed. I think everything in adolescence is magnified. The insecurity, disappointment, heartbreak. Thankfully, the good things are magnified too. Love, friendship, a new sense of freedom. It is a beautiful time in a lot of ways.

We will get through it. I am confident that one day she will be glad that she looks like me. Maybe she'll figure out that being like her mom is not the worst thing to be. I hope she'll be grateful for the pieces of each other that we share. I know that I am.