There are times when I open my mouth to say something (mostly to my children) and I think to myself: “Oh my God; I have actually become my own mum!”
The fact that I am influenced by her is perhaps not all that strange considering she is not only my mum, but also truly my best friend/last call of the day/cookery know-how/therapist/financial adviser and all around amazing person. Which, I am fairly certain, is the way most of us feel about our mothers – and what I really hope my own daughter will feel about me when she is all grown up.
The fact that us girls feel very close to – and lost without – our mums is not surprising to scientist, who have now proven that similarities between mothers and daughters are more pronounced than any other relationship.
In a study to work out why depression and other mood disorders seem to be commonly passed on from mums to daughters, scientists found that the two share a structure of the brain that regulates emotions.”This association was significantly greater than mother–son, father–daughter, and father–son associations,” said researchers in The Journal of Neuroscience, who performed MRI scans on all members of 35 healthy families.
What this means is that women are more likely to understand and relate to the emotions of their mothers than anyone else, and vice versa.
“Our study’s uniqueness,” lead author Fumiko Hoeft from University of California tells Scientific American, “is that we’re the first one to get the whole family and scan both parents and offspring to look at how similar their brain networks are.
“We joke about inheriting stubbornness or organizational skills—but we’ve never actually seen that in human brain networks before. This research was a proof of impact.”
So the next time you call your mum to vent about an absolute horrid day, know that she really might be able to understand your emotions, more than anyone else.
We knew it! Mum really are the best!
