and your Mom is your girlfriend.
A week or so ago, on 'Good Morning America' there was a spot about mothers and daughters hanging out together, going to clubs, drinking, all the things a young woman would do with girlfriends her own age.
Many mothers may have always wanted their daughters to be their best friends, and they raised them to be. When that happens, it is easy for boundaries to become blurred; inappropriate behavior gets overlooked. The mother abdicates her role for the sake of having a friend.
I have relatives who are mother and daughter and go on trips together, hang out together, shop together, do everything together - they are best friends; night-clubbing buddies.
Often, but not always, the mother is divorced and the daughter is single. They shop together, dress similarly, and party together. It's creepy. Imagine being with your mom when two guys hit on you both. Or just out night clubbing, and you both drink too much, and you are both loud mouthed, and obnoxious. It's weird.
What has happened to some mothers that they relinquish their position as role model, guide, mentor, and safe refuge and counsel? It's not always a divorced mother who acts thus. What is the root of it? Is the mother living vicariously through her daughter? Or does she want to retain her youth by becoming her daughter's girlfriend?
Maybe it is another indication of the breakdown of the family and the corruption of morals, so prevalent in our culture. Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me, good mother and daughter friendships should retain a semblance of propriety and hierarchy. A daughter isn't a sister after all.
It's a curious phenomenon, happening with greater frequency. Of course, maybe it's just me, my parents were the last people on earth I wanted to hang out with.
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