On National Daughter's Day

No, not in celebration of our puppy girl, Jasmine! Please - I'm not that far gone just yet!

Photo by J W on Unsplash

This past Sunday was apparently National Daughter's Day. This is a holiday neither my mother nor I had heard of, which, in terms of legitimacy, seems to fall somewhere between National Nose-Picking Day (April 23) and National Ferris Wheel Day (February 14). (While I'm here: Valentine's can be an absolute minefield for the happiest couples, so maybe shake it up for 2023 and celebrate the birth of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. - yes, he of the eponymous wheel - instead of V-Day!)

So it's not like I forgot 9/11, or somehow failed to realize it was Easter. This “holiday” isn't exactly printed on calendars. But as I scrolled past endless social media posts by mothers of all ages, sharing favorite photos of little girls, teens, young women, and more than a few representatives of the 40+ cohort, I found myself surprisingly moved! I decided I did, after all, want to participate in this sort-of-silly non-occasion! But I managed to resist the notion calling my very busy mother, informing her of this Facebook trend, and imploring her to make a post about how wonderful I am. Instead, I thought that maybe I should take a little bit of time to reflect on my incredible mother, and on what it means to be her daughter.

How can I explain my mother to you? Gosh. I've been her daughter for 37 years, and I'm comfortable saying she's been super-humanly capable and utterly one-of-a-kind for all of them. Am I implying that I am personally responsible for her fabulousness - that, in making her a mother, I actually created this dauntless, inspirational, encouraging, outside-the-box-thinking marvel of humanity? Aww! You're too kind!

She would pooh-pooh all of this. And it's for that reason that I'm leaving her unnamed and unpictured. But I've talked to enough people who have been born to her, had classes with her as their teacher or professor, worked with her, or represented American teachers abroad with her to know that everyone agrees: my mom is like no one else. She excels by all metrics. She gets tough things done seemingly just by thinking about them. She seems to always be winning some grant, travelling somewhere exotic, or engineering some incredibly cool project for her students. And she still has time for her own mother and siblings, for her husband, my amazing stepdad, for her kids and our partners, and for her precious, precocious granddaughter!

She gardens. She takes dancing lessons. She makes glass art and draws. She does archery??? And, after a professional life filled with expository and instructive writing, she's currently cranking out her first novel.

When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

Or do I?

I'm pretty sure I'm not the daughter my mother expected. She's told me many times that she didn't know what to expect from me, her first child, at all. But as I look back on my life thus far, I have to think she wasn't expecting a daughter who would be, unlike her, a boy-crazy ham as a teenager, who was obsessed with fashion, who wore her hair in short spikes until she was 26, who would decide to move to Germany and go to college in Canada, who smokes and swears too much, who's a recovering alcoholic.

Growing up as the only daughter of a mother like this can be a challenge. I adore my mom, in case that wasn't clear, and I respect her and admire her so much. But I also have felt immense pressure to live up to her example! To her immense credit, this pressure never came from her. I think I created it myself. She's told me very clearly that this is nonsense; that all she wants for me is to be happy. Even so, I still felt that pressure, that comparison, for a long time. After all, I was raised with a clear understanding of my talents and gifts, with supportive parents who were willing to do all kinds of weird things to help me fully cultivate my abilities, and to find out what kind of life I might like to build for myself. I felt obligated to succeed according to traditional markers: high-flying jobs - well-compensated, of course; a car the same brand as those parked in my parents' driveway; fancy vacations.

But, as many of us former “gifted kids” have found out later in life, there's more to reaching one's potential then just having that potential. For too long, I had such a complex about measuring up to my mom that I think I deliberately underachieved. It's only now, in my late 30s, that I feel that I'm beginning to tap into my gifts and potential, and to do what I should have been doing all along: writing, editing, and sharing stories. That's what my mom expected from me, I think, and she was right! Thankfully, she's not the kind of mom who wants to be right. I'm very lucky that she's been gracious enough to let me follow my own path for as long as I've needed to.

Something else that my mother didn't expect from me, I bet, was to learn very suddenly that, despite my best efforts to cultivate the impression of a happy, middle-class suburban housewife in Indianapolis, I was actually miserable, in an abusive marriage. I bet she didn't expect me to have to leave that marriage. I'm certain she didn't expect me to move to California with our Editor-in-Chief, in order to start a new, happier life helming the writing and publishing ventures that form our core priorities and values as a couple. I didn't expect that either, honestly. But it's unquestionably the right road for me. I've been humbled, and so grateful, for how enthusiastically supportive she's been!

So, while I'm not sure what it feels like or means to be a mother - though I'd very much like to find out - I think I have an answer to my question about what it means to be a daughter. Being a daughter means being a promise both unfulfilled and exceeded. Some of the things I have grown up to be are probably disappointments. But other things that I've done are actually pretty cool! For better or worse, I am who I am, though I hope I continue to evolve and improve. I hope to live as a work forever in progress.

Maybe a year from now, I'll have my own little baby son or daughter to celebrate on this silly, made-up holiday. Who knows? (And if so, we'll see how silly I think it is then!) But as I chart the course for the rest of my life, I'm leaving lots of room both for surprises and for inspiration from the coolest daughter I know, who just happens to be my mother.