Mothers and Daughters
I have never realised until now how my mum might be getting older as I am close to graduating adolescence. When I was younger, my mother was the invincible one. Whenever an adult asked me whom I aspired to, I always gave them “the stare” as if to say why do you even bother to ask? Of course it was going to be my mum. She was able to do everything that I couldn't, such as cooking, ironing, and driving. Especially because my father was never home - he would leave home when I was sleeping and arrive home when I was just about to go to bed - I was more influenced by what my mother could and was able to do. My brother and I were constantly involved in this childish feud over it is his or my turn to sleep next to my mum, and although it seems so trivial now, it was the most important thing for me back then. Then I started to attend a place called school, where I learned that there are people out there who could do things that my mother couldn't. I found that there are people who could draw better and run better than my mum, and I also found that there are people who couldn't cook better and teach better than my mum. This deluge of information suddenly broadened my perception of the world around me, and my mum was no longer the most important figure in my life. Of course, I was still very attached to her, just as a typical seven year old would do. I was more the less dependent on her being able help me in order to survive a day, and wherever I went, I still needed my mum's guidance and care. However, things took a turn that led me separate from my parents and my brother. My grandmother had fallen sick, so my parents had to stay at grandparent’s place to take care of her. Days, weeks, and months passed without being able to see them, and in the meantime, I grew more attached to my aunt who was the allocated caretaker. Despite my initial concerns that I won’t be able to get along with my aunt, things actually turned out to be okay. We went to the movies together, and ended up traveling abroad for a week. Unconsciously, I knew that I needed someone to help me, and what I suppose was an instinct to survive allowed me to live without my parents caring for me. When my parents and I reconciled, there was a slightly awkward feeling in the air that one wouldn’t really expect from an ordinary relationship between a mother and an eight year old child. However, the feeling soon dissipated, and I truly imagined that unless my grandmother falls ill again, I would never have to separate from my mum again. How foolish I was, wrongly confident that nothing would happen in my relationship with my parents. Because in reality, I soon saw myself in a plane bound for New Zealand with only my aunt sitting next to me. New Zealand was beautiful, and I spent most of my teenage life there. However, being with my aunt as the sole guardian, I often was at loss when my friends asked where my dad was. It was quite clear why my friends were asking such question, because obviously, they assumed that my aunt was my mum, and since there was no male in my life, they asked where my dad was. At first, I told them the truth; I was staying with neither of my parents at home. However, I could feel that they started to shun me for being strange; to them, I was the problematic child who didn't have proper parents looking after me. So I started to tell them that my aunt was in fact my mum, and that my dad was just working abroad. As part of it, I started to call my aunt by mum, and since then, the real "mum" was there no longer. It was as if the real mum never existed, and I lived just like that for seven years, not crying and whining to see my real mum as I should have. When I came back from New Zealand, it was as if mum and I were two different entities. Although connected by blood, she and I had completely different personas that stopped us from connecting as well as we did when I was younger. People often say that a child learns his or her moral values from parents. In my case, since I wasn't with my parents, I adopted a very different attitude to varying situations. For one, I was no longer in favour of vinegary aftertastes, whereas my parents were still very fond of vinegar in their foods. The advanced education that I was pursuing didn't help either, because I stared to realise that my mother might not be as educated and invincible as I once thought. As years went by, there were more and more questions that my mum could not answer for me, and I became more and more independent. I no longer needed my mum to take the subway and go to the shopping district, and sooner or later, I was taking flights by myself.
What I didn’t realise was that as years went by, my mum was aging with me. She was starting to have wrinkles around the corners of her eyes, and she started to take medication that she didn't take before. I gradually took over the role of helping my brother with his homework, and started to do things that younger I vaguely thought only adults could do.
By now, the gap between my mum and I have become too great for me to make up. Even if I wish to go back in time, there are too many tasks and assignments on hand to spend some quality time with her. I assume that this is the case with all mothers and daughters; that as we grow older, we no longer are able to retain as strong relationship with our mothers as we used to be. Is this natural? This is a question that I still haven’t quite figured out. I just hope that my mum and I don't drift apart any further than the fragile relationship we are maintaining right now.