Are Mom Jeans Really that Bad?

I remember in high school swearing with my girlfriends that we would be anything but our mothers when we grew up (I am sorry Mom for admitting this....I love you but I was an impossible teenage girl at the time). We swore we would be "cool" mothers when we grew up and would never give into the comfortable fit of "mom jeans", drive minivans or say the nerdy and retro things our mothers said to us.) While I can say, I still haven't picked up a pair of jeans that I would classify as "mom jeans" or given up my SUV for the ease of automatic doors on a minivan (and believe me friends with minivans, I am jealous of that feature) I find myself repeating my mother's famous words and quoting her on a daily basis.

Case in point, this weekend I was talking to Connor about cleaning up his room. He asked me why he couldn't just wait to clean up his toys until the end of the day when he was all done playing. While in high school, I would have found his argument to be completely acceptable, I found myself channeling my mother and saying, "If you put your toys away in the right place right away after playing with them, it will be much easier for you at the end of the day and the mess won't drive me crazy." I cringed as the words came out of my mouth knowing that I had heard them spoken to me and resented them before but continued to go ahead and say them. In other instances, I have been known to use my mother's famous words: "If you take your time and do it right the first time, you won't have to go back and do it again." I clearly remember my mother saying that to me on several occasions when I did a less than mediocre job completing my chores and at the time, she drove me nuts when she said it. It is only now though that I realize how right she was and as much as I hate to admit it, she had a very good and legitimate point.

For those of you that know my mother, you know that she is a wonderful homemaker and has a gift for organization. Her home is always beautifully kept and is never cluttered. While I resented the rule growing up that my room needed to be clean before I could play with my friends on a Saturday morning, I now understand it and have a tremendous amount of respect for my mom and the way in which she kept her home organized, not to mention raising five children in the process.

While I will never possess my mother's great love for "The Container Store", I do find myself trying to implement all of the organization skills she taught me when growing up. For example, we have a rule in our house that after church on Sunday, we don't go anywhere until the house is clean and organized and the groceries have been bought and put away. You might think it a little extreme, but one of my new year's resolutions this year was to be more organized, therefore this rule has helped us all to keep the house in order and has actually given me more time to enjoy my family on the weekends.

My husband affectionately refers to my mom as "the Colonel". He gave her this name because of her extreme organizational and planning skills and has always joked that "The Mahoneys" run on a tight schedule similar to that of the military. If you know my husband, you know that he is NOT a planner and loves to just go with the flow and relax (he is even famous for his spontaneous catnaps and has been given the nickname "Slow-to-Medium Paced" by his friends.) Maybe it comes from my teacher's instinct and type A personality, but I am very similar to my mother in that I like to plan and know what obligations I have each week. I don't feel comfortable just going with the flow, but as a couple, Kieran and I work well together. I am even flattered when my hubby jokingly refers to me as "the little colonel" because I know it means that I possess traits similar to that of a wonderful woman and homemaker.

I guess in the end what I am saying is thank you Mom. I wish back in high school when I was trying to be rebellious and defiant, I knew half of what you did for me and our family. While my friends and I still probably would have made fun of mom jeans and minivans, we might have taken to heart the advice our moms gave us instead of having to learn it on our own later on.

I love you Mom! (or should I say Colonel?)