LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER 

By Carrie Fisher 

May, 2001

You can't fight destiny - you will turn into your mother. But, as author and actress Carrie Fisher discovered after having a girl of her own, it's actually something to look forward to...

It turns out I have lived long enough not only to have a mother but to be a mother. It would also appear that not only do I have a celebrity mother, I am a celebrity mother. And there's very little I can do about any of this but enjoy it. Anything else would be unpleasant.

When I was very small, under doorknob height, a girl from the neighborhood came up to me and said, "It must be so great to have a movie star for a mom." I had no idea what she was talking about, not knowing what a movie star was. But I was thrilled to find out I had some kind of special situation brewing in my home. I headed back to find out just exactly what a movie star was.

I don't remember ever finding out.

I mean, I know what a movie star is now, sort of, but I don't remember it being a particularly vivid realization.

What I knew ultimately was this ... my mother was extremely pretty. Prettier than other moms. Also prettier than me. The former was a good thing. The latter was complex. It would have to be remedied somehow.

My mother also worked. Other mothers - my friends' mothers - did not. This made my mom exotic. But it also made her less available to me. My mother did not belong to me exclusively. I had to share her with the world. This sort of sharing could prove to be unsanitary. It could also stretch my mother pretty thin. I wanted to make sure I got the biggest helping of whoever she turned out to be.

When I was younger I thought my mother was perfect. She was beautiful. She was funny. She was loving and kind. And she could sing - which was great when I couldn't fall asleep and she would scratch my back and sing me songs that she made up especially for me.

My brother and I visited her on the set. She was both parents to us. She was my world. She was, in a word, perfect.

She could only fall from the pedestal I put her on.

As I became more aware of the outside, I realized my mother was not like the mother on Father Knows Best. She didn't wear an apron and cook and drive me to school, and she rarely even played someone who did cook and wear an apron and drive children to school.

Then, during my adolescence, I found out that my mother was human. She had problems. This was not all right with me. Her world was supposed to revolve around me. Her having difficulties couldn't have come at a more difficult time. Couldn't she have scheduled all her messes to come after I left home?

I went to war with my mother. I rolled my eyes at most things she said. Who was she to tell me how to behave? Didn't she see that I was almost grown up and not in need of her antiquated, suspect counsel?

Apparently not.

It took years for me to be confronted with my own flaws. And in order to forgive myself those, or even to admit to having them, I had to forgive my mother for being less than perfect. I began the long road of repairing our relationship.

Having a daughter of my own made me realize what my mother had been up against while raising me. Bringing up two kids on her own and even taking on three of her second husband's children while having a full-time career couldn't have been too easy.

Becoming a mother was...well, initially it was very intimidating. I mean, I didn't know whether I would be good at it at all.

One of the reasons I had a child with Billie's father, Bryan, was that I knew he would know how to parent a child. I certainly didn't have the same confidence in myself. When I held her, I thought I would drop her. When she slept, I thought I would lose her. I loved the smell of her, loved the way her fair hair swirled into a circle at the back of her tiny head. I would watch her all the time. Who would she turn out to be? I called this watching BTV. Baby TV. I watched her discovering her hand. Hand TV.

I know my daughter. I major in Billie Catherine. I know her smell, what food she likes, what clothes she wears, what cartoons she watches, that she likes Austin Powers, dogs, Rugrats, Christina Aguilera, pizza, vanilla ice cream, and that her favorite color is blue.

On the other hand I know my mother likes old movies, guacamole, molasses chips from See's Candies, silver picture frames, reading gossip magazines, popcorn, German Rhine wine and the color green, like her eyes.

We learn who we love. We want to cater to their likes, contribute to their happiness. Take care of them when they're sick, comfort them when they're upset.

Whenever I get sick, I still want my mommy. I want her to scratch my back, bring me 7-Up and soup, put a diaper with Vicks Vapo Rub on my chest and tell me everything is going to be OK.

And when my daughter feels unwell, I scratch her back, bring her 7-Up and toast with strawberry jam, skip the Vicks and tell her everything is going to be OK.

I love having a mother almost as much as I love being one. I love being needed, being asked what something means, can we get a new puppy (no), go to the park (yes), to the movies (yes), to Disneyland (yes), skip school (no), skip French (no), take tap dancing with Grandma (yes). You get the general idea. There's not a lot of "no" in our relationship. Just enough.

Sometimes, following my daughter, I feel like a Secret Service agent or a lady in waiting. Or both. It's this complex balancing act. I have to set limits, which is not my greatest talent. What happens when I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do? Won't my popularity with her suffer?

Jung said, "what do a grandchild and a grandmother have in common?"

Answer: "They share a common enemy."

So, one day, I will be caught in the love affair between my mother and my daughter.

It has already begun.

When my mother isn't working, I become her job again. As though she's going back to raising me. She wants to pick my boyfriends, manage my money, and teach me how to raise my child. God forbid my mother ever retires. My mother applying the same energy to controlling me as she does to doing her show ... well, let's just say I don't stand a chance. My mother has no downtime. The Debbie theater is never dark.

I now hear my mother's voice when I'm disciplining Billie. "I'm going to count to three ..."

"And then what?" I always wait for her to ask. What does she think I'm going to do after three? What did I think my mother was going to do?

Sometimes I did what my mother told me to do, and sometimes I didn't. And, man, you didn't want to be me when I didn't do what she wanted. My grandmother bossed my mother around, my mother, in turn, bossed me around, and now it's my turn to boss Billie around. So we are four generations of women who learn from example to be strong and opinionated.

And what am I gonna get for being an example of strength to my child? A damned uncomfortable power struggle come her adolescence.

But what she's going to get at the other side of all this is, hopefully, a sense of self and strength and humor that makes life not only something to get through, but something to actually enjoy. I know that's what my mother's strength has given me.

My mother was always my grandmother's little girl. She became her little girl whenever they were together. In the same way, I will always be the child I was to my mother, and Billie will always, in some way, be a child to me.

It's difficult to believe that your children can function well, if at all, without your direction. You get so used to guiding them.

What is the cutoff age for all this?

As it turns out ...

Never.