Coffee, drama, co-dependency, binge-eating, and open conversations!
This is not your average friendship, this is the mother-daughter relationship that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore shared.
Gilmore Girls can be credited for the most iconic mother-daughter relationship ever.
To say their relationship was not traditional would be an understatement.
But through their binge eating, movie marathons, no-secret discussions and open criticism of bad decisions and bad wardrobe choices alike, Lorelai and Rory prove that mothers and daughters don’t have to be at loggerheads to love each other.
The show proved that it’s more important to establish open communication than to install curfews when it comes to raising children. Even if that invites fights.
It showed us that as mothers and daughters, nothing is more important than being each other’s strongest supporter – be it ditching a wedding, nursing a heartbreak or attending a dance-a-thon.
It showed us that mothers and daughter can – and should – talk candidly about boys and books, mistakes and marriages.
Because that is how you get the best advice ever, especially when it comes to heartbreak.
It was not an ideal relationship and, perhaps, that’s why all the more relatable.
Lorelai often involves Rory in a little more emotional baggage than we are accustomed to mothers doing, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
We often fail to relate to our mothers, because we feel they don’t understand us. Maybe that’s as much our fault as theirs.
Which is why Rory & Lorelai’s open conversations gave us hope.
Their constant banter and the ability to finish each other’s sentences are more heartwarming than dramatic and emotional speeches.
When Lorelai indulged in her inner child, it allowed us to realize that our mothers too can have moments of insecurity, where all they want is to eat junk and watch reruns.
And when she cut off Rory financially (at Yale), she was the strict mother we don’t want but need; just like when she let Rory know sleeping with a married Dean was not a good call.
And yes, Rory gets away with much more sass than most children, but then again, she often is the more mature of the two.
And always, the two of them together, allowed a third person to enter, rather get embroiled, in their quirky relationship. Dean explains it best!
The trust that Lorelai displayed in Rory, be it in her ability to chose a boy or a college or a career, is something that all mothers should show.
Despite, or maybe because of, Lorelai’s dysfunctional relationship with Emily, she made sure that Rory and she had the kind of relationship that most of us wish for.
As a parent, it is not always important to be right and teach, it is much more important to be understanding and accepting. Like Lorelai.
As a daughter, it is not always important to be rebellious, it is much more important to express your love and to be patient with your parents. Like Rory.
Rory and Lorelai were not perfect individuals, and their relationship was not perfect either, but it was comforting, real, honest, and most importantly, loving.
If Sex & The City stands for female friendships, Gilmore Girls stands as the epitome of crazy, but comforting, mother-daughter relationships.
