Friends Mom -

So, here is a toast to the friend’s mom. The one who fed you, who never told your parents about the dent in the bumper, and who, years later, reminds you that you’re going to be okay.

But somewhere between high school and adulthood, the dynamic shifts. She stops being just an authority figure and starts becoming... a person.

Mark finally showed up an hour late. We hugged, I grabbed a leftover brownie, and I left. friends mom

It hit me that I had never asked her about her life. Not really.

She’s waiting for someone to ask. What about you? Do you have a "second mom" who shaped your life? Let me know in the comments below. So, here is a toast to the friend’s mom

When you’re young, you assume your friends' parents were always old. Now, when I look at Diane, I don't just see Mark’s mom. I see the girl from Oregon. I see the young wife. I see the exhausted mother of a toddler. It makes the gray hairs look less like aging and more like earned wisdom.

When you’re a teenager, she’s just "Mrs. Davis." She’s the one who yells up the stairs that pizza rolls are ready, asks if you need a ride home, and gives you that look when you and her son are pushing curfew by eleven minutes. She stops being just an authority figure and starts becoming

Your own mom knows how to push your buttons because she installed them. But a friend’s mom offers advice without the baggage. When I told Diane I was thinking of quitting my stable job to freelance, she didn't panic like my mom did. She just said, "You’re smart enough to land on your feet. The safety net is ugly anyway."