The Day I Became My Mother

I remember the day I became my mother.

It was in 1981.  I was 26 years old.

MTV had just come into being and I was watching this new phenomena of music videos alone in my living room.

Devo came on with the song Whip It.

I watched the entire video with increasing dismay.

When I could stand it no longer, I stood up and in high dudgeon, announced only to myself, “I cannot listen to someone singing while wearing clay flower pots on their heads!”

Immediately, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand.

And then, still to myself, I proclaimed, “Dear God, I am my mother!”

Now I’m sure a music afficionado such as my son Ben would haste to reassure that Whip It is not about sado-masochism, as the whipping of the clothes off of a woman in the video suggests, but is actually about something else entirely: something perhaps political, as band members have suggested.

But here’s the thing: I really am my mother.  And I don’t like it.  And I don’t much care what its parodying or satirizing.  Nor do I care whether anyone else takes my opinion on the matter seriously.

I’m 56 now; and knowing that I am my mother is comforting rather than shocking.

A lot can change in 30 years. . . including a girl’s valuation of her mother.

I am my mother.

And that’s a good thing.

Oh, and I still think the clay (plastic, really) flower pots were silly.

And fyi, my mother is the one who turned me on to Cyndi Lauper, right about the time Devo was creeping me out.

Thanks, Mom.