How to Talk to Your Mom

I always wanted to have important conversations with my mother. The problem was that by the time she had me she was only 23 and hadn't had much time for self-reflection. She was always in some sort of survival mode. I don't think she had given much thought to her role as a mother or as the important female role model in the lives of two young women. I don't think she ever rehearsed any of the conversations she might have with her daughters about the essential transitions in their lives. I, on the other hand, rehearsed those conversations with her hundreds of times. I spent hours figuring out how to ask her to take me to buy my first bra or make-up, when I could wear deodorant, and what to say to boys that I liked.
Mind you all of these conversations were with my mirror.
I tried out conversations that were succinct, to the point. "Mom, I think it is time I started to wear deodorant."
Or pathetic, "Mom, all of the other girls are wearing make-up and bras, could you please let me do it too"?
Or sympathetic, "Mom, there is this boy in my math class that I think is cute and he won't give me the time of day, you dated a lot of boys, how can I be attractive to them"?
I never actually had any of these conversations, I never seemed to have any one-on-one time with her and I could never find the entree into the conversation. I ended up going bra shopping with my older brother, who teased me mercilessly about it. I used the old make-up and deodorant that she threw away and muddled through hairstyling by observing my older sister.
I talk to my mother almost every day now, but I still don't feel like I can broach any subjects that are personal or difficult. I certainly can't talk to her about her alcoholism or her inability to really express how she feels or her lack of self-esteem.
A friend of mine just finished the prenatal course with Gurumukh. She had so much to tell about babies and birthing and mothering. One really important piece of advice she had was, work out the idiosyncrasies that you can before you are a mother. I worked out a lot of things. Or maybe, better said, I became aware of a lot of my habits and qualities that will make being a mother challenging. I tend to be aloof and have a convoluted way of relating to others. I know how to make someone angry at me so that I can blame myself for them not liking me. I know how to turn any feelings of pain or being left out into me just being crazy and paranoid. I know that these are qualities that I inherited from my mother. I wish I could talk to her about them. I know that I inherited these habits.

I now have two girls and I want them to be able to have these conversations freely with me when the time comes. I could never really talk to my mother about anything important. I want my daughters to feel that they can talk to me about anything. Perhaps having rehearsed all of the angles of conversation, I will be able to start these discussions with them before they start to really wonder about these essential qualities of girlhood. It may be simply that I need to make the space for those one-on-one conversations now, when their questions revolve around finding their place in the world and understanding why the sky is blue and what makes the seasons, so that we can broach the far more complicated questions that will come later.