What I Learned Rewatching Gilmore Girls as a Mother

Boy, does Lorelai know how to get serious when she needs to. It doesn't happen often (once a season, on average), but in those rare conversations, even my back stiffens from the other side of the TV screen. She does it when she finds out Rory is sleeping with a married Dean, and she uses it when Rory drops out of Yale – which even included conspiring with her parents to force her return to college. And although she comes around to it eventually, I was proud of how she handled Rory's plans to write a revealing book about her life. With a firm "Kid . . . " or a simple "This isn't you," she stands her ground and doesn't budge, negotiate, or backtrack.