This Mother/Daughter thing....

My youngest daughter and I love each other. We both know that. Yet we can only stand to be around each other for short periods of times before one of us blows up at the other. We have our little tiffs then everything is all right til the next one.


This may sound crazy to those of you who know my daughters are adopted but my youngest is so much like me and she does things that I do, yet I don't like those things in others. She is bossy. She is opinionated. She tends to be very impulsive and always has to be right. I get so frustrated with her at times but my husband says it is like he is in surround sound when the two of us get into our heated debates and neither wants to back down.

She is very political and very conservative where I am not. We argue needlessly over that when there is no real need to but neither of will back down. I should but it does not seem to be in my nature.

She says I want to mother her too much. She may be right. She is twenty-one and I find myself biting my tongue when she tells me about the latest love of her life but I did not bite the time I called her and her room mate said she was not in the dorm. It was 3 a.m. and she was at his place. I told her it was time for her to get to her dorm and she told me she was spending the night on his couch.

How dumb does she think I am. I was that age once and when I spent the night with a guy, I did not sleep on his couch. But my mom never knew about him. When I suggested she should not do this, she blew up and said I was to mind my own businesss. But two weeks later she was calling me, crying on my shoulder about Mr. Wonderful and I wanted to tell her it was not my business but I am a mother. It is my job to soothe her wounded ego when the louse she was with dumps her. Right?

Even though I am saying in the back of my mind, 'I tried to warn you............'

But I made those same mistakes when I was her age and my mother tried to warn me but did I listen. No. I knew it all. I guess she is too much like me after all....