When I went to fill out my very first profile on a dating app, I froze at the prompt: “I’m happiest when…” My mind went blank. I struggled for words to end the sentence, the way you struggle for a memory that’s just at the edge of your brain but you can’t quite get hold of it. All kinds of self-doubt crept in. Do I not know myself? Am I not a happy person? Oh God, am I clinically depressed and don’t even know it? Complete irrational panic took over.

I’d been divorced for two years. It followed a 30-year marriage that ended on discovering that almost all of it was built on a lie, as it turned out that my supposed adoring husband was a serial adulterer. Recovery was an ongoing, years-long process, but I felt stronger and, I thought, happier, than I’d been in a long time. Until I had to put it into words.

Suddenly, I didn’t know anything about myself, what made me happy, or more likely, what I was willing to reveal to strangers. So, without giving it any thought, I reflexively texted “help!” to the first person my instinctive mind decided would have the answer. Not my best friend of 40-plus years, not my mother or siblings of 60 years, but my 28-year-old daughter.

We like to assume that our children don’t see us as people, just parents. We might tell them stories about our younger, carefree selves, show them pictures of us cavorting with high school friends, or even befriend them as adults. But subconsciously there’s an assumption—on both our parts—that while they might see us, they can’t really see through to the real us.

When my daughter graduated college and started working and living independently as an adult, our times together, while chummy, were still defined by the mother-daughter boundary. If we went clothes shopping together, we would sincerely ask for each other’s honest opinion; but we both knew those opinions were always framed by our roles. I would tell her she looked stunning in a particular outfit, and I’d mean it, but in my mind I’d be thinking something a true girlfriend never would: “Does it really have to be quite so revealing?”

When she looked at my choices, I have no doubt she was thinking, “Okay, good, that seems about right for a mom look.”

When my single friends ask my opinion about men they’re seeing, I answer like a girlfriend, asking if they have enough interests in common. Do they share the same values? Does he make her laugh? And other similar criteria that creates healthy relationships. When my daughter asks me to opine about a latest boyfriend, my knee-jerk questions are inevitably more mom-like, along the lines of, “Does he treat you well?” “Does he respect your opinions?” and of course, “Is he on good terms with his mother?”

So why was my reflex, when prompted to say something personal about myself, to turn to my daughter? Haven’t I revealed my thoughts, wishes, likes and dislikes a thousand times over to my decades-long best friend? Have I never told my own mother what makes me happy? Why would my young adult daughter, who hasn’t even lived with me regularly for over 10 years since high school, know me better?

The answer is in the word, reveal. When you share your thoughts, feelings, disappointments, and joys with your best friends and family, then yes, you’re telling them what’s important to you. But words can only reveal so much. Your children, on the other hand, get to know you by observing.

From the time they are very young, they watch, and they retain. They know your triggers even better than you do. They know what stresses you out. They know how to make you laugh They know what buttons to push to elate you, or to disappoint you. It certainly never seems like it when they’re teenagers, and probably doesn’t seem like it to them either, but their brains are constantly processing information about you and shelving it away like a Google data bank.

For the record, this condition isn’t limited to mothers and daughters. My recent phone conversation with my 20-something-year-old son, who lived 700 miles away, went something like this:

Me: So, what did you think of the Super Bowl ads?

Him: Underwhelming. Last year was better. But YOU definitely liked the Rocket Mortgage one, with that Mr. Rogers song. You cried at the end, right?”

Me (a bit defensive): How do you know I cried?

Him: C’mon, Mom, I know you. You always cry at that stuff. You even cry when they lift up the Lombardi trophy at the end of the game!

Darn, he nailed it.

So, no, I didn’t think about it consciously when I texted “help” to my daughter. I just knew, subconsciously, that she would have the answer. And of course, she responded within seconds, 100% on the nose.

I’m happiest when…I’m reading spy novels. How in the world did she know?

 

Lynda Bekore has written for The New York Times, Huffington Post, and has worked as a professional editor and writer for over 20 years. In an ideal world, she’d be reading spy novels while playing pickleball.
.