Nearing seventy years old, I’m having more and more conversations with my friends and family members who complain about a lot of things—health, money, caretaking, their children, other drivers, the erosion of manners. I won’t go on. Recently I have heard plenty of sentiments along these lines.

“Oh, my God! I am so looking just like my mother.” It should be noted that this statement is never expressed as a one of relief or accomplishment; it is definitely something else.

So when someone says that they look like they are on their way to looking just like their mother, I think, “Well, who else would you look like as you age?”

When I asked a friend of mine that question, she said, “Well, I don’t know. Joan Baez? Gloria Steinem? Dr. Phil says we always have choices.” I think, in this very small matter, Dr. Phil may be wrong.

I mean, really. Is this not a crazy thing to say? Isn’t this like saying, “I seem to be getting older as I age. What’s up with that?”

If we didn’t look like our mothers did at our age, wouldn’t we be sending a cheek-swab to 23 and Me or other DNA profiling agency to ascertain our heritage. Wouldn’t we be cooking up schemes to remember the name of the milkman, find his children and sneak a cheek-swab from them, as well?

I may be too harsh here. I am a Baby Boomer and I know how youth obsessed we are. Research shows that our self-perceived age is about thirteen years younger than our chronological age. When we don’t recognize ourselves in the mirror is not the mirror’s fault; it is our fault. We are in denial. This younger age, what researchers call “felt age” or “subjective age denial”, is not confined to the elderly. In our celebrity enchanted, youth-adoring, appearance-envying culture, even the relatively young perceive themselves 15% younger than their chronological age.

So it may be that my friends are not so much complaining about aging like their mothers as dealing with changing perceptions of themselves. They are crossing thresholds their younger selves couldn’t imagine. Is there a generation that has sought and followed more advice about aging? We have turned natural and normal aging into a giant industry that has neither the science nor the moral standing to guide us our way. Charles Revson made this point clearly when he wrote that the beauty industry doesn’t sell cosmetics; they sell dreams. The same can be argued for the whole enterprise of preserving our youthful hair, bodies, resting heart rates, and cognitive power. This is not an argument for maintaining wellness as long as we can but we may be pushing the envelope and the envelope is pushing back.

This looking more like my own mother gives me pause. I should have been kinder to her when she was aging. I should have made less fun of her jiggling upper arms and confusion about technology. I should have understood her reluctance to go the beach and her eagerness to cover up an aging body—vanity aside. I should have listened when she complained about falling hair and the aggravating noise levels in restaurants. It is hard to come to terms with my younger ageist self. I bet my Mom never said, “Oh my gosh, I am becoming as clueless as my daughter.” I do have regrets here–that I wasn’t more patient and kind. That I didn’t have enough moral imagination to consider myself being in her shoes. And now that I am I can take some pride in thanking her for this long-lasting curly hair, my increasing reluctance to go to parties, my inability to get too riled up about anything, and the greater frequency of people thinking I am a little old lady with a wicked sense of humor. We are so cute, after all, as were our mothers.