May 11, 2006
Mothers and daughters
Mother's Day always gets The Three Tomatoes thinking about -- well mothers of
course. But this year we find ourselves thinking about daughters and that most complex of all relationships, mothers and
daughters. Our own mothers, sad to say, are no longer with us and as a result have achieved a certain sainthood in our
minds. But as we were growing up, truth be told, they were more often the "evil" ones standing in our way of fun and
self-expression. Like they were always home; and banned us from wearing orange lipstick (which apparently only "ladies
of the night" wore), and warned us of the perils of hanging out with boys who just wanted to take advantage of us, gave us ridiculous curfews
like being home by midnight, and yelled at us to turn down the volume to the Beatles. And while they
didn't acknowledge that we smoked cigarettes, they did tell us that "ladies" don't smoke while walking down the street.
And the last people in the world we wanted to be like of course, were our mothers.
Then a funny thing happened. We grew up and had daughters
of our own who one day around the age of 13, suddenly viewed us as the "evil ones". After all, we were the ones who
"were never at home", wouldn't let them go to the real cool concerts in NYC that started at 11PM like everyone else's mother, and yelled at them to
turn down the volume to Guns and Roses. We still remember one Mother's Day when our then 16 year old daughter came
downstairs in a ripped pair of blue jeans to join us for dinner at a rather nice restaurant and when we told her she had to change into something
more appropriate, yelled that "we had ruined her life". And then added that just because we looked Muffy and Biff, didn't mean she had to
also. But what we most remember about this little incident was that while we were turning red in the face from our elevated
blood pressure, our mother was in the background smiling to herself.
And then another funny thing happened. Our daughter grew up,
turned into "Muffy" and had her own little daughter. And no doubt she too will one day become "the evil" one placing
ridiculous boundaries on her daughter too. But in the meantime, watching this lovely, loving, patient, terrfic Mom, who just
happens to be our daughter, makes us smile to ourselves in the background. And with a little nod up to heaven, we say thanks
Mom, we're glad we grew up just like you after all.
Happy Mother's Day to all our tomato mothers and daughters.
The Three Tomatoes
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