Your Mum drops in with a little something she picked up for you.  You are filled with a familiar dread as you realise she has done it again: bought you an item of clothing. “Oh it was on sale. I saw it and thought of you.”

Now, in your head you are thinking: Mother – what is it about this frilly swirly multi-coloured top with a halter neck and beaded bodice makes you remotely think of me? And then you begin to question your own fashion choices.

So why should you never let your mother choose your clothes?

Well, the store {insert name here, we don’t want to offend anyone} where your mother likes to shop is basically aimed at a certain age-demographic. We aren’t going to say that your Mum chooses boring old-people clothes because your Mum might be funky in her own right. But your clothing says a statement about YOU; you have to feel confident and comfortable, not frumpy and 25 years older than you are.

Now onto the second point: why you would never let your mother choose your man. Well, if it were up to my Mum she would choose the first man she met who a) ironed his clothes and b) knew what Gumption was. But bless her heart, there is more to a man than that. You want someone who connects to you on many levels, someone who you could imagine sharing your life with and someone who is going to fall for you – not your Mum. But of course, if your chosen man is polite and courteous to your Mum it is going to make your life a whole lot easier!

This quote from Bridget Jones’s Diary says it all (said by the character of Mark Darcy): “Mother, I do not need a blind date. Particularly not with some verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and dresses like her mother.”

Mothers are a blessing until they flex their tastes on your behalf. You know you can’t stop them doing it but you don’t have to use either the clothes or the man.

But good on her for trying.