What I Learned Rewatching Gilmore Girls as a Mother

Updated on 4/28/2017 at 5:15 PM

When I first tuned in to Gilmore Girls, which began airing a startling 16 years ago on a now-defunct network called The WB, I was closer in age to Rory — the bookish teenage girl being raised by a single mother in a small town. As the show gained in popularity, my mom and I began watching it together. On breaks from college, I'd come home and we'd binge-watch a full season before binge-watching was a term.

After its seventh and final season ended in 2007, I didn't revisit it. Then, the Netflix revival was announced, and I spent this past Summer rewatching all 153 episodes — a feat considering I had a toddler to raise and a new pregnancy to nurture. This time, though, I wasn't seeing it from a daughter's perspective. Now, I was closer in age to Lorelai. My vantage point shifted greatly, and I discovered nuances that never seemed to exist before . . . not least of which being my concern for how much caffeine a growing child could ingest.

A few days late (a necessary drawback to having said kid and third-trimester sleep deprivation), I hunkered down on the couch — with my mom, per tradition — and watched Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

In a slight twist, I now felt intrinsically connected to each generation of Gilmores. As a mother to a girl of my own, I was Lorelai — struggling to define my role as parent and as my own person. As a 30-something, I was Rory — still curious about my life's path as a new, life-changing detour presents itself. And, with my own mom at my side, I was Emily — rushing to create a lasting legacy for my family . . . while KonMaring her closet.

Although I admit that Lorelai and Rory aren't the embodiment of mother-daughter relationship perfection and are, in fact, deeply flawed, at times deeply frustrating characters, I've learned a great deal from them in rewatching the series — and the final chapters on Netflix — now as a mother.

Ahead, a few parenting lessons I gleaned upon my return visit to Stars Hollow.

We Shouldn't Expect Lorelai-Rory Relationships With Our Daughters

Upon later viewing, even I — who has a blissfully healthy, happy relationship with my own mom — can recognize how unrealistic this particular mother-daughter relationship is. Not only is their meager 16-year age difference a hurdle many of us can't jump, but their rapid-fire banter and uncanny openness (ahem, one-night-stand-with-a-Star-Wars-creature postmortem . . . ) aren't the norm. For some, it's not even the ideal: it's codependence.

Yet I watch each season and can't help but create expectations of closeness with my own daughters in the future. It's hard to avoid and fun to imagine, but I trust that it will result in serious disappointment if my own girls don't connect with me the way Rory does with Lorelai.

Still, It's Not So Terrible to Be Friends With Your Kids

It's one of the biggest sticking points to Gilmore Girls haters: the whole mom-as-best-friend scenario. Plenty of parents think there's nothing worse than letting your kids see you as their pal, but from my albeit-limited perspective, I think as long as you are parent first, it's OK to foster a true friendship as well. Lorelai often nods and smiles like a supportive bestie when she could have stepped in, and in most cases, I admire her restraint. (Though, as an adult, I can't reconcile egging a boy's car with your kid no matter how big of a jerk he was being.)

You Have to Know When to Play the "Mom Card"

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.

It Really Does Take a Village

Yes, Lorelai gets pregnant at 16 and takes on a "riches-to-rags" story to give her new daughter the life she always wanted, but even as a single mother, she admits she never did it alone. The support network that surrounds Rory throughout her life is apparent in every episode. Sure, we don't all have a Stars Hollow filled with quirky Kirks and Ms. Pattys, but it's worth doing your damnedest to give your kids as many positive, diverse influences as possible.

Keep Your Baggage Out of It

One of Lorelai's most glaring flaws when return-viewing is that she can't keep a single thought to herself, particularly damaging ones about her parents. Yes, Lorelai has her fair share of mommy and daddy issues thanks to Emily and Richard's stifling style of child-rearing, but the way she so often unloads her feelings of seething resentment to her child seems a wee bit unfair to the relationship Rory could have with her grandparents.

I honestly think if Lorelai kept her opinions about her privileged-yet-stifling upbringing closer to the chest, Rory's rebellious phase would have included more Jess (something we all can rally behind) and fewer yacht-related arrests while living rent-free in the Gilmore pool house.

Accept That You — and They — Aren't Perfect

One of the biggest frustrations of the original series and the revival is that Lorelai and Rory are "the worst." And, in some ways, they certainly are. They can be self-serving, self-involved (for the love of Luke's Diner, you guys, his name is Paul), and self-aggrandizing. As a daughter, I'm not perfect, and I'm certainly not coming any closer as a parent. As for my own daughters, I certainly hope they avoid many of Rory's life choices and altogether avoid the current transient life phase she's in now, but I'll always be on their team even if their decisions turn out, God forbid, worse. In the end, it's important to be able to see a character who's made mistakes aplenty and still root for them.

Don't Be Surprised When They Turn Out Just Like You

The Netflix revival raised as many questions as it answered, but if the most circulated theory holds, it seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As much as I love the "full circle" storyline with Rory following in her mother's footsteps, I can only imagine the bittersweet emotions it's bringing up in Lorelai, who actively spent her life trying to give her daughter a completely different life than her own. It's anyone's guess what my children will be like as adults, but the fact that I already see personality traits — both good and bad — in my 2-year-old makes me think we can only do so much, and perhaps fate (or plain old genetics) plays a heavy hand in the rest.