HELP! I'M TURNING INTO MY MOTHER

Ellen Manning, 40, is finding that her teenage fears are coming true...

- JENNY ACKLAND

Carefully folding a tea towel in four, meticulously ironing each crease as I went, it suddenly dawned on me. The iron paused mid-air and the words fell out of my mouth: ‘Oh God, I’m turning into my mum.’

It was November 2022, and the more I looked around, the more I saw it everywhere. The meal prep neatly stacked up in the fridge, carefully saved receipts from every purchase packed into my purse, even the irritation I felt at a coffee cup left out on the kitchen table by someone other than me. All the things that niggled my mum Cyntra, 72, were starting to niggle me too!

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