17 things you never appreciated about your mom until your 20s

You know she’ll always be there for you. Even if you do some dumbass thing like start saying “Namaste” at the end of your conversations or killing a person.

1. Her food is amazing. Remember before you left the house for college, when you were bored with her homemade eggplant rollatini and whined that you wanted to go to Baja Fresh? Yeah. Now you crave that homecooked food every time you have one of your own semi-edible stir fry dishes. And even if she doesn’t cook, eating greasy takeout while watching SVU with her is equally comforting.
2. She’s generally right about things. Boys, jobs, apartments, hairstyles, whether to splurge on the professional pantsuit or the freakum dress — basically everything. Moms are #psychic.
3. She’s fun to talk to. On the phone. For three hours. Every mom has a billion opinions, and people with opinions are the most fun to chat with.
4. She is an expert of the kind of cute little homey accents that make a house a home, and inspires you to do the same in your starter apartment. Basically, she’s a font of #AnthropologieHacks. Yo what up, it’s your girl Young Puts Scented Soaps In Clothing Drawers!
5. She’s an accidentally hilarious text messager.
6. She’s the Horse Whisperer of finding random crap you misplaced in the house. The Crap Whisperer. Yes, it STARTED because you were too lazy to look yourself and told her that she was just “much better at finding things,” but now it’s not about laziness — you really just need her to find things. (Whatever it is, it’s between the couch cushions.)
7. She listened to all your middle school drama bulls__t as if they were things that would actually matter in five years. With such solemnity and care that it’s almost like you are talking about the state of global warming instead of a Livejournal fight you’re having with Stephanie Horowitz over Jeremy McNamee.
8. Decisions she made about raising you, even when you were a pain in the ass about them, made you the successful, amazing, ~*~*lOvELy~*~* person you are. If she hadn’t forced me to study for tests and quizzed me with flashcards — which inevitably led to fights — I might not have become the Professional Butt Sex Scribe that I am today.
9. She’ll give you reality checks when necessary. Honey, you don’t have insurance and you live in a 200-square-foot windowless hole, this is not a good time for you to get a dog.
10. She indulged all the passing childhood phases/obsessions you had. Ice skating phase? ($). Ballet phase? ($$). Anime phase ($$$ plus the endless embarrassment that cannot be fiscally quantified). Getting out of gym by pretending you sprained your ankle phase? ($$$$$ in bone scans to keep up your lie).
11. You know she’ll always be there for you. Even if you do some dumbass thing like start saying “Namaste” at the end of your conversations or killing a person.
12. She’s not Amy Poehler in Mean Girls.  
13. She’s the best drunk ever. S__t Drunk Moms Who Don’t Usually Drink Say needs to be on YouTube, now.
14. She always wants to fight your battles, even though you don’t need her to. Thank you, Mom, but I’m 27; you don’t need to call my landlord.
15. She didn’t yell at you 24/7. I mean, kids are FRUSTRATING. Have you ever ridden public transportation?
16. She always caught whatever gross playground PoxMumpsCold contagion disease that you brought home as a kid. And took care of you just the same, even though she felt equally like crap.
17. She’s a real, multifaceted person. Until you reach adulthood, your mom’s name is Mom and her job is also being your mom. Suddenly, in your 20s, you notice that she is a human being with interests outside clothing and feeding you, and it’s baller.