Mothers. Can't live with them, literally could not exist without them. Mostly. Mothers are an almighty presence in most of our lives; if we've not got one ourselves, then they're all over the media. A significant amount of marketing campaigns directly (and in a pretty sexist way) to target them as prospective customers, while also implying that every girl is destined or should want to become a mother at some point in her life. Do they really? There comes a time in every person's life when they start to mature - sometimes gracefully, sometimes, well, less so; and they start to realise that they're adapting the things their mother does. Is it environmental? Is it genetic? Or is it simply because you really need that new cutlery set as it totally matches your crockery? It's a change in mindset, rather than in anything physically happening or altering - although you may start to realise that you both carry the same disgruntled expression of horror whenever a piece of new and mind-bendingly awful music of any genre pops up on the radio. Is it a bad thing? Well, you can decide that for yourselves, but there are plenty of common patterns and trends that appear to indicate that you're slowly but surely and irrevocably transforming into your mother. Let's look at the evidence...