MY sis and I grew up with a spectacularly beautiful woman. My mother was tapped by two separate Hollywood agents and appeared in 13 MGM movies from 1931–1932.(she was 18–19 yrs old.) She forgot to develop skills other than looking gorgeous and obsessing about appearances.
She was overprotected by my father and he treated her like a helpless trophy. As she aged, she has been sadly unprepared to replace her lost looks with hobbies, women friends, delight in her kids, grandchildren and great-grands or interest in any of the myriad wonders our world holds.
I was grateful to be “not bad looking.” That enabled me to have a richer and more complex life.
Living with a self-centered, almost classically narcissistic mother who cared more about what “they” said we should do, be, wear, was very difficult. Oh, those rules about no white shoes after Labor Day….