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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My mom and I get along really well.  My teenage years were rough, primarily because we are totally different personalities.  I'm really introverted, and she is a total extrovert.  So in some ways, she just didn't get me, and I felt like I was inadequate because I wasn't as social as she was.  But overall, we had a good relationship, and here's why I think that was the case:

(1) She was genuinely affectionate.
(2) She truly admired my talents, even when they weren't the same as hers.  She was proud of my good grades and encouraged my love of reading.
(3) We had fun together--when I was goofy and silly, she'd laugh right along.  
(4) She was very firm, but fair.  I knew what the rules were and I knew that she would enforce them.  When I got in trouble, I always knew I had it coming.  There was never arbitrary punishment.  I also felt safe because of this.
(5) She was willing to admit when she made a mistake.  
(6) She stuck up for me against other authority or family members when it was justified.  If a teacher was treating me unfairly, and my efforts to resolve the situation weren't helping, she was a real mama bear.  She didn't run interference for regular disagreements, etc., but when I was being treated badly or unfairly, she stood up for me.  
(7) She never tried to live her life or relive her youth through me.  She recognized that we are different people, and accepted my choices even when they weren't the ones she would have made.  She fully accepted me and loved me as I was, while still having standards for my behavior.  [/quote]

I had The Best Mom Ever, literally, and most of the above applies to her. We disagreed on tons of things over the years, and I'm sure our relationship during my teenage years wasn't wildly different than most other mother-daughter dynamics. But by my 20s she was genuinely someone I enjoyed being around, and whom I deeply admired despite the fact that her life's path was very different than mine (she was a SAHM, never went to college; I have a PhD and work FT on issues that were totally foreign to her.) We had so much fun together, she encouraged me to take risks and be a better person, and she was genuinely caring about so many people. Her funeral was on my oldest child's 2nd birthday, and while it breaks my heart she never really got to know her grandchildren, I think of her every day and I always aspire to be as a good a person as she was.[/quote]

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