“How are you different from your mother?”
“I hope, in as few ways as possible.”
This from Studio 60 this week.
Have been thinking about mothers and daughters. Cracked open my thesis last night (had to dust it off first). The photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe’s hand across her bare breasts still gives me shivers. Procreativity and creativity. Photo at right is three generations of Eldredge women at Thanksgiving 2002 – one month old Gracie represents the end of the line for the red hair, apparently. I am pretty sure I don’t want Gracie to want to be just like me, but I think all the time about what it means to do right by her. I organized a Planned Parenthood event yesterday morning about how to talk to your children about sex – it was incredibly thought-provoking. Mostly because I realize now and then that Gracie (and Whit, eventually), will grow into a full-blown person; the responsibility of this is pretty daunting! I am so conscious of wanting Grace to grow up to be a confident woman, secure in her place in the world and sure of herself, physically, emotionally, intellectually. I don’t have any answers yet but I know the road ahead holds a complex amalgam of closeness and separation. As Letty Cottin Pogrebin says, “We mothers are learning to mark our mothering success by our daughter’s lengthening flight.” How to manage the myriad tensions between identification, longing for intimacy, and letting go … this will be one of the primary tasks of my life.
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