(ThySistas.com) Ever feel like your parent’s mistakes hold sway over some of your decisions? When we watched them struggle as children and our only thought was how we would do things differently when we came of age. Yet, when we become adults, we see ourselves in similar situations and find ourselves using their examples with extremely parallel outcomes. There are a lot of talks about generational curse but what about generational habits?
We tend to follow the examples of our mothers while we walk through life. How she dressed, certain organizations that she joined, dishes that she cooked are all in our minds when we think of how we want to follow in her footsteps. We also look at where we assume she went wrong and make ourselves determined not to repeat those missteps. Of course, our vision is always 20/20 because we were on the outside looking in. We couldn’t possibly put ourselves in her shoes and understand what internal and external stressors pushed her toward a decision that affected not only her but those around her. Judgment is then passed, and we don’t have the slightest clue about anything. However, when our world is turned upside down and we find ourselves on a similar path we begin to understand only a fraction. Our circumstances may be better or worse, experiences may also be different, but we make a rather familiar choice.
After further analysis, we observe that we followed our mother’s path and made the same decision she did. A small voice in the back of your mind may have said, “I remember her doing this and it seemed to work.” Only to find that the decision was short sighted and only delayed your time. It is here that we feel the guilt of judging our mother and what we had formerly deemed her mistakes. The situation is never helped by family or friends that readily say, “You act just like (insert mother’s name here).” The emotions attached to that statement can be either positive or negative. In times of trouble, the latter is usually true and makes us feel even more inept.
Of course, generational habits are not meant to be an excuse for one’s behavior. We are our own woman and make our lives according to how we think we should exist. Our mother’s blueprint is not our own even when we force ourselves down that path. We cannot run our lives according to her playbook. We cannot judge our successes or failures by the results of similar missteps to our mothers. We must be kind to her and her choices because they made our mother who she is just as our children will in reference to us. It is up to us to which examples of our mothers to exemplify and which ones to dispel. It is here that we make the ultimate decision to break what we feel are generational habits and create new ones.
We as mothers should have conversations with our children that give them a clear picture and context for our mistakes when we are able to. We should be honest in our imperfections so that our children recognize, when they get older, that we were also human and did the best we could.
Staff Writer; Jessieca Carr
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