Something happened a couple of days ago that jarred my memory, yet again, and made me think of something that someone told me. I really wish I could remember who it was that told me what I’m about to tell you, I want to give credit where credit is due, but alas, I can’t remember who it was. Oh well, suffice it to say, it was something that I heard from someone back in high school.
What this guy told was so profound, and so true, that I would say it’s damn near prophetic. What I’m about to tell you Men, if you heed it and understand it, you will literally be able to see into the future. I’m not kidding.
Here’s the prophecy:
The girl you are with now? Want to know what she will look like in ten years? Look at her mother.
Like I said, I remember hearing this when I was a young lad back in high school. For some strange reason it stuck in my head, to this very day.
I remember the first time I thought about this little gem, I was eighteen and was dating a sixteen year old girl. She was sexy, cute, funny, and yes, she had a gorgeous body. She was my first “real” girlfriend, and she was my first sexual experience. She also ended up being my oneitis.
I remember one day while I was sitting with her, I looked over at her mother. Out of shape, fat, all sorts of health problems. It was all there. I remember thinking to myself, “god I hope that doesn’t happen to my girl.”
Fast forward 25 years…
I ran into that old girlfriend in 2015, not too long after I got divorced. We got caught up on each other’s lives. And guess what?
She turned out looking exactly like her mother.
Let’s move on to more recent times shall we?
My ex-wife had two girls from her first marriage. Those girls lived with their father. When I met and married my ex-wife, these girls were teenagers. The oldest one was 16 when I met her and she had just received her drivers license. She would come around occasionally to show off her driving skills and her car that she busted her ass to earn. She looked almost exactly like her mother. By that I mean facially. Her eyes, nose, teeth, smile, hair color, all of it. It was so uncanny because her father was literally not in her, at least not physically. She was definitely her mother’s daughter. If either she had been older, or her mother been younger, they could have passed off as sisters instead of mother and daughter. They could have almost been identical twins.
The years go by, I get divorced, and I haven’t talked to my ex-wife in a few years, and the same could be said about her daughters. Well, just a couple of months ago, the oldest daughter contacted me on Facebook. I have nothing against her. What happened between me and her mother had nothing to do with her, so we chatted for about an hour or so. I learned that she was in the military, had been married and divorced twice, and had two children of her own. Two girls. If memory serves me correctly, she’s either 28 now or 29.
I saw pictures of her on Facebook the other day. Not just headshots, but full body shots. Can you guess who she looks like now?
If you said her mother, you would be absolutely correct.
When I looked at her, it was like seeing what her mother looked like when she would have been 28 or 29. It was so eerie that it gave me goosebumps. Not only the physicality, yes the oldest daughter has put on a bunch of weight, just like her mother, but even the amount of tattoos. She almost as tatted up as her mother.
You need to understand something.
The oldest daughter and her mother had a falling out about a year before I filed for divorce. They hadn’t spoke in a long time. The oldest hadn’t seen her mother in years until she got her drivers license. There’s a lot of history and details going on here that I’m not going to go into. Suffice it to say, there’s issues between mom and the oldest. When the oldest and I talked not too long ago, she asked me if I had talked to my ex, her mother. I told her I hadn’t talked to her in almost three years. She said that it had been almost as long for her.
Their issues are so bad and run so deep, my ex-wife, her mother, hasn’t even seen or met her grandchildren. She knows of them, she knows they exist, but she hasn’t met them or talked to them or held them in her arms. She literally knows nothing about them. And that’s the way that the oldest daughter wants to keep it.
When I was back in college studying psychology, the big emphasis was the Nurture side of things in the equation of Nature vs Nurture. Nature was acknowledged, but was more or less summarily dismissed as not being as important as Nurture.
When I saw those photos the other day, when it gave me chills, it’s because Nature was showing up. I can’t scientifically prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but I know what I saw and I know what I know.
The oldest is going down the exact same road as her mother. Same mistakes in men. Same mistakes in marriage. Same mistakes in body modification. She even has the same temperment, outlook on life, and mannerisms as her mother. And yet she hardly knows her mother. She barely interacted with her mother growing up. Her mom and dad got divorced when she was young, like 7 or 8, and her mother had little interaction with her after the divorce.
She has the same tonality as her mother. She even uses phrases that her mother used. And she never heard her mother say them.
History repeats itself indeed.
Guys, want to know what your girl is going to look like in ten years? Look at her mother.
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Rob Says 
this is interesting to me on many levels. yes, it’s generally true. if we do not want to be like our mothers, though, we have to intentionally change our trajectory, and that change is multi-faceted.
it’s not enough to simply say … “I do NOT want to be _____.”
we must also say, “I DO want to be ____.”
it must be more than the negative. focusing on the negative of what we don’t want without focusing on the positive of what we do want gets us nowhere.
also … for a woman to not be like her mother, imo, forgiveness is the first step. i had to forgive my mother for what she did and who she is. took a very long time. i required this of myself, though, before i became a Mom b/c i didn’t want to pass that down to my own children.
there are many specific things i did not want to do like my mother. it wasn’t enough to not want to do those things. i had to also, then, create the positive to replace the negative.
for example, my mother always has talked about how ‘ugly’ she is (she wasn’t, but she always said she was). i didn’t want to pass that onto my daughters. so rather than simply saying i didn’t want them to ever hear me say negative things about my appearance, i had to learn to say positive things.
along that line, the first bible verse i taught my daughters is I Peter 3:4, “Your beauty should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. This is of great worth in the eyes of God.” we can have the external beauty of a goddess, but if we’re ugly inside, the external beauty is cancelled out and becomes our downfall.
the other thing in all this is that i had to learn that there were actually some good things about my mother that were okay to keep. she treats people with kindness, and it is not only okay but also good that i do the same … and it is okay for me to be compared to her positively when i do. in other words … as the saying goes … you don’t have to ‘throw the baby out with the bath water.’
– – –
i think i’ve done a really good job with all of this. my daughters are 21 and 19, and they are amazing. we have an incredibly close relationship. the three of us are nothing like my mother.
a few years ago my Oldest sang to me the song, Like My Mother Does, as a gift to me (Mother’s Day or my birthday – can’t remember which). best.gift.ever. because she meant it. because it means that God can take us off a destructive path and put us on a different one that is good and beautiful and wonderful and all the good things 🙂
from AZ Lyrics:
“Like My Mother Does”
[Verse 1]
People always say
I have a laugh
Like my mother does
Guess that makes sense
She taught me how to smile
When things get rough
I’ve got her spirit
She’s always got my back
When I look at her
I think, I want to be just like that
[Chorus]
When I love I give it all I’ve got
Like my mother does
When I’m scared, I bow my head and pray
Like my mother does
When I feel weak and unpretty
I know I’m beautiful and strong
Because I see myself like my mother does
[Verse 2]
I never met a stranger
I can talk to anyone
Like my mother does
I let my temper fly
And she can walk away
When she’s had enough
She sees everybody
For who they really are
I’m so thankful for her guidance
She helped me get this far
[Chorus]
When I love I give it all I’ve got
Like my mother does
When I’m scared, I bow my head and pray
Like my mother does
When I feel weak and unpretty
I know I’m beautiful and strong
Because
I see myself like my mother does
[Bridge]
She’s a rock
She is grace
She’s an angel
She’s my heart and soul
She does it all
[Chorus]
When I love I give it all I’ve got
Like my mother does
When I’m scared, I bow my head and pray
Like my mother does
When I’m weak and unpretty
I know I’m beautiful and strong
Because
I see myself like my mother does
Like my mother does
I hear people saying
I’m starting to look like my mother does
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