Chapter 1 Peanut Butter
“Do you want one?” my childhood best friend Sophie said to me in the lunch line. We’re 11 years old, and we finally made it to the big boy cafeteria where the choices felt unlimited and freedom of our own diets finally reigned. She pointed to a child’s delicacy, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“No thanks. I don’t like peanut butter.” I said, scrunching my nose at the thought.
The cafeteria goes silent. Eyes filled with horror shoot towards me like lasers.
“You don’t like peanut butter?” She whispered.
Okay, well… maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but at 7 years old, I felt all the heat and shame of the world. To be honest, I didn’t know if I liked it or not; I just never tried it. My Mom is a stickler for scents. She has every corner of our house doused in some Jo Malone room spray with a complimentary Nest diffuser, which, by transitive property, resulted in no stinky foods. No Blue Cheese, no Doritos, and NO PEANUT BUTTER.
My Dad would fight her on it whenever we went to Costco and insist we needed to keep at least a few jars in the pantry… but I just think he couldn’t pass up a good deal. Though he was persistent, my mom was stubborn.
“The kids don’t even like peanut butter,” I remember she would say.
When I first built up the courage to defy my mother and try the salty-sweet spread, I didn’t like it. My first taste, pun intended, of rebellion was a mountain of disappointment, and I guess this is where I learned that mother’s always right. She was right about the clothes in my closet, the bad seeds in my grade, the wine I’ll grow to love, and my first boyfriend, the heartbreak I thought I’d never survive. “You will find a love greater than life,” she’d whisper as she rocked me tight in her arms, mascara streaked across her pink cashmere sweater.
Chapter 2 Pink, Purple, Blonde
“Do what you want, but you can’t live in this house when you’re depressed about your choices,” my mom says across the kitchen island. I’m 16 years old. I want to go brunette.
When I was in third grade, my adventurous mind came to the conclusion that I would be better off with pink hair. My mom, who has been coined as the friend group’s “cool mom,” was quick to agree. Ready and willing to face my father’s wrath after asking for forgiveness instead of permission, we went to the salon, and the bottom 3 inches of my hair turned into Lavagirl. At school I was a hit, so much so the Head of our entire K-12 day school came to my class to take a peek at the weird kid with the weird hair and the weird family. It was innovative at the time. We never really fit in at that school.
My mother started dying her hair blonde from a deep brown when she was 16 years old and blew her hair pin-straight, hiding her gorgeous Jewish coils. Her love, or possibly hatred, for her hair was then transferred to me, and my perfectly pink ends became an ombre obsession. In middle school, I upgraded to highlights, and by eighth grade, I was searching all of New Jersey to find a colorist to get me “blonde enough” because it was never blonde enough. When COVID rolled around and there was too much time to reinvent ourselves (don’t mind I was in the middle of my heartbreak recovery too), I was steadfast in dying my hair purple. Not only did my mom love the throwback to my roots (hair joke), but she herself went and picked up a coloring brush, mixing bowl, some gloves, a few tubes of “Lavender Skies” and went to town on my head.
My mom rarely says no. From sleepovers on school nights to endless hours acting as my chauffeur, she’s been more than my mother but an accomplice in my teenage adventures. But that day, standing in our kitchen, her comment carried a different weight. It wasn’t just about changing my hair color; it was about owning my decisions and the emotions that came with them. Though I still have yet to dye my hair my natural color, I’ve learned it’s her equivalent of every other mother saying, “you could use a little color on your lips.” It’s her advice on womanhood from the first and greatest woman I’ll ever know. My mother’s lessons often come with the meaning tucked between the lines—her way of guiding me to discover not just my style but my substance. Each suggestion, about hair or otherwise, isn’t merely superficial advice; it’s a metaphor for presenting my best self to the world. Now, as I consider the shades of my future, I aim to navigate the world as she has—fearlessly, beautifully, unapologetically, and blonde.
Chapter 3 Sleep-away Camp
“Hopefully college goes better than sleepaway camp,” my mother said as we packed the trunk for my freshman year at Michigan. At 10 years old, I thought I was invincible.
Back in the day, I was a theater kid, which is a fact that often causes mouths to drop open as my talent is truly very limited. Listening to my shower ballad, usually starting with the classic Hallelujah, is not for the faint of heart. Despite my lack of skill, my parents are my greatest supporters, so when I jumped at attending a three-week theatre camp in the mountains of upstate New York, they signed me up the next day. No hesitation, no further questions.
“If you don’t pick me up, you don’t love me,” I wrote in an email to my parents 2 days in. Let’s just say granting a homesick child unlimited email access will be the reason for their downfall. For the entirety of the summer, I cried while somewhere on the Jersey shore, my parents and their friends were hooting and hollering over my desperation. The granted response to my incessant emails could have gone one of three ways:
a. My mom drives up to the mountains to save me from my misery
b. My mom sends back encouraging words and a care package to remind me of home
c. My mom tells me tough shit
Based on how this story goes, you can guess which one she picked. Three weeks later and at least 100 emails deep, I was rescued from the horrors of musical theatre and ziplining with a practiced, “See, that wasn’t so bad!”
A few years later, when I felt the trauma of my first sleepaway adventure begin to subside, my parents pushed me to try again at a new camp, one without internet connection. That summer was the Nightmare of 2013 the sequel. In my moments of weakness, I would find myself faced with a choice: stick it out or stick it out.
To my mother, nothing is the end of the world. Everything can be fixed with a good night’s sleep, a proper outfit, and “hard f*cking work” (another thing I picked up from my mother: her sailor’s mouth). As a child with a very minimal understanding of my emotions, I thought she was tough as nails, but that’s when I call my father. Nothing was sugar-coated, I was never coddled, and I learned that tough love is the best love.
I’ve taken this love with me everywhere I go, from sleepaway camp to Madrid; it has injected itself into my nature as a person. Her ferocity stems from a deep motherly love and the steadfast belief that I can do anything. This has sculpted me into someone who, like my mother, understands the importance of resilience and thrives on the challenge of proving yourself capable. The best support often doesn’t come swaddled in soft reassurance but through the
unwavering belief in yourself and those you love.
Thank you, Mom, for every moment of guidance and every ounce of love. She has taught me not just to endure but to thrive, and each step I take carries the strength and wisdom she’s instilled in me. So, as I navigate the complexities of life and prepare to graduate college next year, I am fortified by the knowledge that I am, proudly and profoundly, my mother’s daughter.