Generational Womanhood

“You sound just like your mother”

My mom was a pistol in high school. She listened to all the rock and roll songs that were banned in churches, pierced her own belly button, and never bothered filtering her thoughts before they left her mouth. The kind of girl to fight a man twice as large as her. I didn’t know her, but I’ve heard enough about her to know her spirit, and my mom was someone I think I’ve been trying to be like my whole life. 

I wasn’t born with a wild temperament. I started compulsively cleaning my room when I was eight, and I completely fall apart at any minor inconvenience in my strict routines. I am not my mother. I mirror my grandparents, my grandma, more than anyone. Cleanliness and structure are priorities for us. My mom had me at a young age, so I’ve had the privilege of seeing the last of her girl-rage before she fleshed out completely into a woman and a mother. There is a certain mold to motherhood, and my grandma had perfected it. My mom began to pour herself into this mold with sweet reluctance, finding more joy in the mundane things of motherhood, just as her mom did. As my mom became older, her habits started mirroring her mom’s more instead of rebelling against them. They would agree on things, hold the same opinion about a piece of clothing, and come to the same conclusion when working through the latest gossip. Over time I’ve watched my mom walk closer alongside her mom, learning to finally appreciate all the mindsets and ideas she had always been working so hard to refute. 

Getting to witness my mom and grandma’s relationship first-hand has been something I hold very close. I ache to understand what happens to a girl when they start to become their mother. While I am not who my mom was at my age, sometimes I will show streaks of her in my very different life as an early twenty-year-old. When I get an impulsive tattoo, cut my t-shirts too short, or stay out until the sun is rising again, I see her within myself. We are different, but I still hold that fiery piece of girlhood I saw my mom smother. The girl of my mother has made a home in my own body, only coming out to play every so often. I am myself completely, but I have inevitably and undoubtedly been touched by the angst of my mom’s young spirit. 

Growing into your mother is a beautiful thing. There’s a dull pain that comes with letting your younger self go, but it is in that space you find your mom waiting for you to grab her hand. My greatest accomplishment in my life is mirroring my mom and taking the best parts of her and making them my own. I’ve began to mature quickly, and the growing pains are a little scary. Luckily, I have a mom and a grandmother who have gone through the same thing. It is an unspoken bond, growing into a woman of the family. It is finally seeing the women you have always looked up to on the same standing ground. You find the same love you had for the rebellious piece of yourself in the aged, sweet hands of the women who have gone before you.  

Strike Out,

Writer: Hanna Bradford

Editor: Jane Dodge

Graphic Designer: Maddie Nunnery