What would Mom think of those throw pillows?
Invite your mother to your house for Sunday brunch, and you may find yourself anxiously waiting for the comment about your curious choice of wallpaper, inexpertly hung artwork or the insane amount of clutter that has taken up permanent residence in the living room.
Or maybe it’s not anxiety but relief that you feel when you visit your mom and sit on her plaid sofa with a crocheted blanket draped over the back, wondering how you managed to escape the odd decorating choices that defined your childhood, like decorative frogs. Yes, frogs.
Trisha Leitch grew up in a three-bedroom house in central Washington that at one point was overrun with more than 200 frog-related objects, because her mother loved frogs and when you have a quirky appreciation for a cute critter, people give you paraphernalia. There were frog pillows, place mats, dish towels and toilet seat covers. There was even a figurine set of Camelot, complete with King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Guinevere — each a frog in medieval garb.
“You name it, you put a frog on it, she had it,” said Leitch, 42 and living in a six-bedroom house in Boise, Idaho, with her family and not a decorative amphibian in sight.
Leitch, who described her mother’s style as “very hippie eclectic,” prefers a neater aesthetic, keeping surfaces clear and possessions tidy. She also avoids all things kitsch and refuses to commit to any one creature. When she received a ceramic rooster as a birthday gift, her children suggested she get a few more to create a farmhouse motif in the kitchen. Leitch quickly put the kibosh on that idea.
“I don’t want 82 owls in my kitchen or 4,000 chickens because I once said I like chickens, and everybody says, ‘Let’s get Trisha something with a chicken on it,’ ” she said.
For better or worse, the expectations set by our parents creep into the homes we build as adults, influencing how we decorate and maintain our space, and setting a standard that we either strain to meet or try to flee.
Your mother’s decorating sensibilities may linger, whether or not you want them to. Your tastes in colors, fabric and style may differ, but some underlying principles will keep whispering in your ear, reminding you to have as many seats in the living room as you have at the dining room table, or always to tidy a room before you leave it. If you fall short, you might feel like you’ve failed to reach some unachievable goal. But dismiss your childhood rules entirely, and you may feel a twinge of nostalgia.
“Every child is fighting for their independence, even if they’re 60,” said Fawn Galli, a Manhattan interior designer. “They want to embrace their aesthetic education, but they also want to break away from it.”
Some eventually come to appreciate their parents’ style.
When Leitch’s mother crocheted her a set of Star Wars figurines, she happily accepted them. “They’re stupid cute,” she said of the statuettes of Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, each measuring about a foot high.
She displays them on a shelf in the TV room where guests rarely go, and her family can marvel at them, privately.