Like Mother Like Daugter

Currently I am on tour in New York with my show, Old Jews Telling Jokes. For those of you who don’t know, I am a born and raised New Yorker. What up 516!!

I have not been home in 4 years so I was really excited that my tour was coming to New York because that meant seeing friends I don’t get to see often, and hanging with my mom who still lives here.

Usually on tour I stay in a house with cast mates, but this time I got to stay with my mom and her boyfriend in their house for 5 weeks.

Now as a 30 year old who has basically been on her own for the past 9 years going home and having my mom, is a treat! She makes me food, gets groceries, treats me to manicures, and takes me out to dinner!

What could be better right?!

And while all of those things are amazing and I am going to miss her when I leave soon I also found this time at home to be really eye opening.

I have not spent time like this with my mom in a long time since now I live in Florida full time, I’m married, I work…so an extended stay instead of just a vacation let me see things I usually don’t pick up on.

So here is what I have learned being home:

1. My mom and I are very similar

2. Her anxieties have become my own

3. No wonder I am a perfectionist

4. We react the same way

5. We have a hard time asking for help

6. Sometimes screaming is our love language

7. We are both active caretakers of the people around us

8. No wonder acts of service is the way I show love

I have spent a lot of my life trying to recognize the similarities between my mom and I. Taking the good and amplifying it and taking the bad and trying to work on it.

But I can honestly say I don’t think I ever realized how similar we are. Which makes sense since she was 1/4th of the team that raised me (the other 1/4th being my dad, and 2 older brothers). But her DNA created me.

So it makes sense that we share a lot of similarities.

As a young girl you learn from your surroundings. And now as I step in to a new phase of my life where kids are on the table it’s really exciting and nerve-racking to see how much of an impact your parents have on you.

Your parents and your upbringing truly define who you are but you get to decide what part of that up bringing you get to amplify and what parts you get to change and modify when the roles are reversed and you become a parent (if that is what you choose).

So basically I wanted to write this blog post to admire the hard work that my mother and father put in to raising me and my siblings and say how excited I am to be able to play that role for the next generation.

So do yourself a favor, call your mom, call your dad, call your grandparents, you caretakers, whoever, and tell them how much you appreciate them.

They don’t hear it often enough and they deserve to be told how much they have impacted you.

Love always your cycle half,

Emily