WHO AM I?

From our first breath on this planet, we are influenced by our surroundings. Although each of us is born with an inherent personality and body type, for the most part we are molded by our environment. In our twenties, we have not yet had enough life experience to fully know who we are separate from our parents' and society's views of us. "Who am I?" we wonder. While this question about identity might seem somewhat ethereal, and the mystery of who you are cannot be solved by this book alone, we can start by breaking down the question into several smaller, more understandable parts. First, it is imperative to look at all the people and events in your life thus far that have had an impact on you.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE ... LIKE MOM

When we are formulating our identity, we often look to role models for clues about how, what, and who to be. Perhaps our most significant female role models are the people who have been with us from the very beginning — our mothers. In fact, almost half the women I interviewed named their mothers as their primary role models and/or primary sources of influence. There is no doubt that our mothers — our relationship with them, their choices, their behavior, and our feelings about these things — have made significant impressions on us and will continue to affect our identity throughout our lives. If your mother was not in your life, think about the person you consider to be your main parental role model as you read through this section.

Heather is a twenty-five-year-old associate producer at a local news show. As the first woman in her family to go to college, she watched her mother live vicariously through her children while never doing anything for herself. Heather decided at a young age that she did not want to be like her mother, who never established an identity of her own. Her mother's life seemed boring, degrading, and, quite frankly, "beneath her." At her college graduation ceremony, Heather remembers, she gazed over at her mother, wishing she could truly connect and share the moment with her. Now, as Heather tackles the real world by herself, she is aware that "I often feel jealous of my girlfriends who have savvy working mothers who they can turn to for advice. I am even a little resentful that my mom did not really prepare me for the life I want. It sounds terrible, but sometimes I wish my mom had taught me how to balance a checkbook rather than how to bake banana bread."

Our Mothers' Role in Our Lives

Heather's experience highlights how the lives of our mothers (or whoever else our strongest female influences are) and our judgments of them affect who we choose to become. Our generation is the first to be raised in a time when women's roles were undergoing significant change. Our mothers were part of the baby boom generation, and most of their own mothers stayed home, instilling in their daughters the values of cooking, sewing, and attaining an "MRS" degree. Yet unlike Heather's mother, many of our moms began to challenge women's traditional role and fought to make a working woman as common as one with a killer apple pie recipe (Donna Reed, rest in peace). As the feminist movement gained momentum, more women chose to go to work and to have lives outside the home. Even if they didn't identify themselves as feminists, many of our mothers passed on to their daughters a desire to be part of the workforce. Gloria, twenty-five, says, "My mom is my role model. She had a great career as a pediatrician and has always been extremely supportive of my dream to pursue a career in medicine as well."

In my research, I found an even split between twenty-something women who had mothers who worked and those with mothers who stayed home. Ina, a thirty-year-old technology buyer in Dallas, says that having a mom who worked full-time had both a positive and a negative effect on her. "Her strong work ethic was an excellent example, but the negative side was that I thought she was Superwoman. She worked at least forty to fifty hours a week, kept a very clean house, and was always there when we got home from school because she worked nights. When I started working, I was struggling to pay the bills, get everything done, and spend time with family and friends, while working fifty to sixty hours a week. I kept telling myself, 'Mom did it and had even more to do! You're not trying hard enough.'" Ina's opinion changed after she finally talked to her mother about this. "She said that she struggled every day. It was hard for her; she would go into her room and cry after we went to bed at night, physically and emotionally exhausted!" Perhaps if Ina had been aware of her mother's struggle, she would not be so disappointed in herself.

Like Heather's mom, many of our mothers made careers out of being mothers and wives. They packed our lunches and attended PTA meetings. Yet even if we had great home lives and our mothers were happy, many twenty-something women still want more than their mothers had, and might have been encouraged to think this way by their stay-at-home mothers. Twenty-four-year-old Diana told me this when I asked her how having a stay-at-home mom has influenced her desire for a career. "My mom did stay at home, but she'd kill me if I called her a housewife. She did a lot of volunteer work and was always busy. She has influenced and encouraged me to work and strive hard for what I want. I want to raise my children, but I want to still have my career and use the skills I spent so many years building."

Some of us saw our mothers take on the roles of both parents as divorce became more common and our moms were forced to do it all. Maggie, twenty-seven, who was raised by a single mom, says, "My mom and I didn't really have such a great relationship. I respect her because she worked a lot, carrying two or three jobs to pay rent and support us. I got used to not seeing her and to being very independent. I respect her for being hardworking and having the guts to accomplish a lot." Explaining the downside, Maggie says, "My mom complains that I am too obsessed with the future and I work too much. Well, because I grew up with a single parent living from paycheck to paycheck, I want a better plan for my life. Sometimes it drives me crazy that I am like this, but I don't want my children to have to worry about money like I did."

Given all the different types of mothers we have, we are faced with a question: "To be or not to be like Mom?" Now, it's obvious that our mothers passed on to us some unavoidable traits, such as hair color, the size of our hips, or an undeniable love for the Beatles. And we fight tooth and nail not to inherit other things...