So as your mother sows, daughters will reap

Of every 10 Sunday morning masses I attend at St. Francis Xavier church, I'm usually late 8 times. Thus my brother and I are relegated to standing at the left wing of the church which I have named the Children's Corner. Why? Because crying, screaming toddlers and children that run about are not attractive in the main section of the church. Thus their parents are relegated to the open-air left wing of the church where their precious tots can scream till they're blue in the face and mummy or daddy can quickly hoist them over the shoulder and run towards the car-park without causing many heads to turn.
Yes I don't like kids. Yes I'm planning on having minimal or none at all. Yes I'll make a pretty scary mum.
Back to Sunday mass... I was watching these kids today (although I PROMISE I heard every word of the homily ok! You can test me!) and their mothers and I realised there were such distinct differences between these kids even though all of them were hardly older than 6 years. Now I have known these kids for the past 5 years. I saw them come into church as toddlers and babies, as their mothers took what was to become their permanent seats in the children's corner... and even after my 2 years in Singapore, I still recognise these kids and their personalities that haven't changed since I left, and neither have their mothers.
Take for example Mum number one. I call her the funky mum. She's probably in her early 30s and she looks confident and pleasant with a really cool short spiky hair-do that tells me she's definitely a new generation type of mother. She's always dressed in comfy young stuffy (baby-tees, nice fitting pants, denims...) and au naturel make up. In fact if it wasn't for her mild-mannered looking husband that reminds me of Calvin's dad from Calvin and Hobbes, I think this woman bears a striking similarity to Cherie! And she has these 2 lovely little girls that look extremely like her, and already at that young age they completely take after her. They are dressed in bright coloured t-shirts and cute little 3-quarters and look nice and comfy. And they are very comfortable with themselves too. They're never attention seeking and they're all nice and smiley and never scream. Except for the fact that they like to bring their colouring books to church and play with little toy cars around the toes of fellow parishioners, they could graduate into the main section of the church with no trouble at all! Way to go, mum!
Now on to mum number 2. I call her the bitchy mum. She looks exactly like every tarty KL secretary would look (no offense to KL secretaries), long ironed-straight hair, perfectly manicured long nails, clothes that try too hard (i.e. tight, short and tighter) and a perpetual "I smell something bad" look on her face. She has two kids. A boy and a girl. Now if I had her kids I would have spanked them, and locked them up WITHOUT bread and water until they promised to behave. They whine! They talk loudly! They fight! And they disturb everyone else! And then they run back to mum, and what does mum do? She just brushes them aside. She doesn't even look at them. If they tug at her arm she shrugs them off and pretends they're not there. When they go "Mum! Mum!" she doesn't answer. And since mum is nonchalant... so are the little monsters to the rest of the church. And the clothes those kids wear just scream brand names into our faces. The little girl today was dressed in one of those pretty but hot and stuffy frocks (that I used to wear when I was small and would saintly bear the itchiness because I was a terribly vain little girl) and would look like an angel if she wasn't reading the church bulletin out loud. Attention seeking mum, attention seeking kids... not a pretty picture!
Now mums number 3, 4 and 5 are the partridge family. They are all either sisters or sisters-in-law (I really can't tell... they are just one BIG family inclusive of grandma as the family matriarch) and I have been watching their brood of kids expand over the past 5 years (I think it totals 5 right now and 2 of the mums are pregnant again). Now it's really sweet the way they come to church as a family and sit together and look after each other's kids till I can't tell which kid belongs to whom. And as for the kids, it's so cute to see the way the older cousin takes the hand of her younger struggling toddler cousin and walks them around the church compound while mummy and daddy listen to the homily. Or when the baby cries, the cousins immediately come round to entertain it and stop it from wailing (some times it succeeds some times it doesn't... well there's only so much that baby's can take of hot Sunday mornings). And just as their parents look part of the affluently well dressed yet modest church crowd, so are the kids nicely dressed in smart Alice in Wonderland type of pinafores or dresses complete with Mary Jane shoes or little neatly pressed shirts tucked into little shorts and sit quietly in the church pews or else wander around on their own when they start to get fidgety. Now that's a clan of mothers to be proud of.
I also noticed during mass that all the husbands of mums number 1 to number 5 were almost similar in mien and character, that even clones would have more differing personalities. Therefore as a science student would my hypothesis that mum's are a critical factor in a child's personality hold true? I definitely think so (and so does my mum)
Today, I fought with my mother. She said I was too critical and blatant when I speak. I told her I talk just like her. We ended up apologising to each other.
Daughters will become their mothers. It's like a vicious cycle of life.
Happy Mother's Day