I had an interesting conversation recently with a woman (we'll call her Kate) who said 'I'm turning into my mother.'
It is the kind of comment I have heard before, and I wonder if, like 'One day they'll find out,' it is something of an archetypal, or at least widespread, story.
It was interesting to start to unpack the story a little bit. Clearly, it was expressed as a lament, but in fact, Kate recognised many qualities in her mother; and also recognised many ways in which she, Kate, was quite different, in both attitude and behaviour, from her mother.
We haven't finished exploring this, but one of the many stories we have already identified in this scenario is the story 'I'm turning into a mother.' A subtle difference in wording, but recognising that many of the ways in which Kate was behaving more like her mother were simply a function of the fact she now has children of her own to look after.
That may not seem a major change, but in fact it opens up new possibilities for Kate to make sense of how she and her life
are changing, and it is starting to release her from that dreaded fear: 'I'm turning into my mother.'