A strong mother-daughter relationship is something many women hope to cultivate in their lives,
but the ladies of sMothered are taking it to the next level. Is there such a thing as
being way too close to your mom? Here's everything you need to know about TLC's sMothered.
"I am the greatest mother."
So how do you get your own loving mother-daughter relationship featured on sMothered? TLC has
an open casting call on their website looking for what they describe as "extremely close
and over the top moms and daughters." And producers are looking for duos who quote,
"take the traditional mom and daughter relationship to new heights." But considering how much
heat comes with putting your relationship up for scrutiny, you might wonder why anyone
would subject themselves to such ridicule.
Sandra explained that her reason for wanting to appear on the show was so that she could
show off her strong bond with her daughter, telling Hollywood Life,
"I just thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to share the most amazing experience in my
life."
Claiming that Mariah is the best thing she's ever done, she added,
"I mean aside from careers and all of that, my biggest accomplishment is my daughter."
When you and your mom are super close, dating can be pretty tricky. Not only do you have
the normal challenges of finding a good match, your new partner won't be getting all of your
attention. Sandra told the New York Post,
"I've had guys that I tried to date tell me that our bond seemed too strong for there
to be room for anyone else. So I would dismiss them."
"The last thing I'd wanna do is make Mariah look bad."
Mariah has had similar experiences with men saying they don't want to date her mom, too.
And to that, she says,
"I'm like, 'You're not, but I'm still in constant contact with her. So you can get lost.'"
But they aren't the only mother-daughter pair to put their bond before their relationships.
Sunhe told The Post,
"We always have an agreement. If Angelica didn't like my dating partner, and vice versa
with her, we generally did not stay in that relationship."
"I will never let her waste her time."
Fans of the show may find themselves wondering why one of the cast members looks so familiar.
It turns out that sMothered isn't Cher's first foray into reality TV.
In her teenage years, Cher was featured on MTV's My Super Sweet 16. And even back then,
Cher and her mom were pretty tight.
After her debut on My Super Sweet 16, Cher appeared on a spin-off called Exiled, where
she was sent to the jungles of Panama, to learn to be independent.
"I've never worked that hard, like, a day in my life."
Her stint on the show inspired her to study nursing at the University of Florida. Mostly
without her mom.
Full on sMother-ing can lead to some awkward family dynamics. A close-knit relationship
is one thing between a mother and a single child, but when there's more than one kid
in the family, someone's bound to feel neglected.
"You guys are wearing the same sweater. Really?"
Kathy has two daughters, Carly and Cristina, but Cristina is clearly the focus of her "smothering."
Carly said on the show,
"My sister is very obsessed with my mom, and my mom is very obsessed with my sister."
She also went on to tell her mom that some of her antics are quote, "crazy." She might
not fully approve, but early in the show's first season, Carly admitted that she sometimes
feels a little left out of the bond her sister and mother have.
"It's like they're in their own little world and no one else is invited in."
While she isn't part of an official sMothered duo, she claimed via the Chicago Tribune,
"I live with my mom, so no one is more smothered than me by my mother."
The moms on sMothered act more like their daughters' sisters or friends, and sometimes
it's kind of hard to remember that they're decades apart in age.
"We can actually feel for each other. It's like twins."
Cher and Dawn not-so-jokingly refer to themselves as twins. And to pump up the twinning effect,
they even dress alike. While they don't live near each other, they're in frequent contact
and consult each other on their outfits over FaceTime. And they're not beyond even swapping
clothes when the occasion arises.
"Wear something similar. Okay, love you! Bye!"
Cher told the New York Post,
"Whenever I go to Florida, I can raid her closet. When she comes to New York, she doesn't
need to pack much, she raids mine."
Who needs a girl group when you have a built-in best friend? While there's nothing wrong with
having a close relationship with your mom, most people who love their mamas have other
friends, too. Mariah and Sandra, however, don't have many other friendships, and they
spend most of their time with each other. They even claim that they don't really need
anybody else in their lives. Mariah told Hollywood Life,
"We don't have many friends, like, our friends is right here."
"Yeah."
"This is our unit."
A lot of people might think that this is an isolated way to live, but Mariah and Sandra
seem to be perfectly content with the current situation. Mariah said,
"We get each other. We just get each other so we just stick with each other."
Cher's hubby, the third wheel
Being in a sMothered style relationship can be tough for your loved ones, especially your
significant other.
"It was definitely overwhelming at first to deal with Cher and Dawn together. I felt like
I was the third wheel."
Having met at the University of Florida, and gotten married in 2013, Cher's husband, Jared,
admitted that he often feels like the odd man out because his wife and his mother-in-law
take up so much of each other's time.
"The longest I've ever gone without talking to my mom is maybe a few hours?"
Cher might be close to her mom, but that doesn't mean that her husband is completely brushed
aside. The Florida native moved to New York for Jared when he began a plastic surgery
residency. She also kept a major secret from her mom; Cher told her husband she was expecting
before she told her mother.
"Are you pregnant? Oh my God, are you really pregnant?"
While some of the mothers and daughters on the show are happy to keep in touch through
long distance texts and video calls, others need to be as physically close as possible
to each other. And for Sunhe and Angelica, they need as much close-proximity mother and
daughter bonding time as they can get. For many young people, going off to college is
a rite of passage, a time to be independent for the first time. But Sunhe couldn't bear
to let her daughter leave the nest.
"My mom is the closest person to me in my life. Ever. Even after life, she's gonna be
the closest person to me."
Angelica moved to Virginia for college, and while Sunhe didn't exactly move into her dorm,
she did relocate to Georgia in order to be closer to her precious daughter. She then
drove six hours every two weeks to see her girl, telling the Post, quote, "I have always
uprooted for Angelica."
One of the scenes in sMothered that was held up as proof of how extreme these mother and
daughter relationships are, is one where Sunhe and Angelica talk about sharing bath water.
"If the water is still hot, we will share the bathwater."
But what TLC left out of the edit, is that this is actually one of the least extreme
mother-daughter moments the sMothered stars shared. Angelica told TooFab that they don't
just jump in the bath, they take showers first.
Sunhe added that this is common practice in both Korean and Japanese culture, and that
the critics who are slamming them are quote, "sick." Sunhe also pointed out that it's really
no different than getting into a public hot tub or swimming pool. Which most people do
with total strangers.
"When she goes into my bathwater after I've bathed, shows me so much trust."
Some strong mother-daughter bonds may grow over time. But others are deliberately nurtured.
One of the reasons that Sandra and Mariah are so close is that Sandra raised her daughter
to be her BFF. Sandra definitely got her wish, because she and her daughter are closer than
many best friends, let alone typical mothers and daughters. Mariah told Hollywood Life,
"We make each other laugh. I mean she's...I'd rather talk to her than anybody else in the
world."
Claiming she can talk to Mariah about anything, Sandra added,
"With any job issues, with any legal matter, anything. I mean she, I'm just like wow I
cannot believe it."
Mariah then revealed,
"She raised me to be her best friend. Which, I'm happy about it, you know what I mean."
Sandra claims the two have been close ever since Mariah was quote, "in the womb."
The show focuses on each mother-daughter pair as they go about their daily lives. But since
the four duos aren't brought together for filming, they don't actually spend any time
together. Everything each pair knows about the others, is gathered from watching the
show and interviews. So, how do the other moms and daughters feel about their co-stars
on the show? They're pretty tight lipped, but Dawn diplomatically revealed to People
magazine,
"Everyone has their unique bond. And every bond is different. If it works for them, great.
It's not our bond. This is our bond."
When Cher was asked if she thought some of the families take things too far, she said,
"Every mother-daughter has their ups and downs. I'm sure they have some really great aspects
of their life and some really weird ones, too."
Angelica and Sunhe also refused to pass judgement on the other duos. Sunhe claimed she didn't
think it was unhealthy for other cast members to do things like get Botox together, telling
KTLA,
"If that is what they like to do they can do that."
"That's their bonding time."
"That is them."
The relationships portrayed on sMothered might seem co-dependent to most viewers, but the
mother-daughter duos swear that there's nothing strange about their relationships. Kathy told
the Chicago Tribune,
"People want to see their husbands every day, why wouldn't they want to see their kids every
day? I don't like the perception that there's something wrong with this. There's nothing
wrong with this. There's nothing weird about this. This is how we live. We're just very
close, and I don't get why people think it's so weird for mothers to be so close with their
daughters. I would hope people would get from [the show] that it's not that crazy. It's
maybe how it should be."
"Mmmm I love you so much."
Angelica told the New York Post that her relationship with her mom is simply misunderstood, claiming,
"People want to find something wrong in a relationship when they don't understand it.
But my mom and I are close. There's nothing wrong with it."
The sMothered lifestyle isn't for everyone, but if you want your own airtight bond with
your mom, Cher and Dawn can teach you how it's done. The mother-daughter duo wrote a
book called A Bond That Lasts Forever. In it, they share tidbits about their lives,
and also encourage mothers and daughters to forge a close relationship.
"From the time that she was an infant, I felt that she was going to be my very best friend."
They wrote on their website,
"Every bond is unique and we know that ours may seem a little crazy at times…but no
matter what, we have each other's back and that will never change. We spent the past
two years rehashing memories (good and bad), writing countless drafts, interviewing other
mother-daughter pairs, and editing for hours, in order to make a book that will not only
be enjoyable and an interesting read, but will help countless mother-daughter pairs
create, mend, or strengthen their relationship."
The sMothered crew may not let their significant others interrupt their bonds, but how do grandkids
impact the relationship? For Kathy and Cristina, it's no problem. Kathy is a hands-on grandmother
and is helping to raise her grandkids, which enables her to spend even more time with her
beloved daughter. She said on the show,
"Cristina lives five houses away from me. We meet for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Geez,
you guys could shovel a little…and I wouldn't have it any other way."
But Cher and Dawn live on opposite sides of the country, so there's already a strain on
their bond. Cher told her mom that she was expecting a baby in the first episode of the
show, and while Dawn is ecstatic about the news, she also thinks the addition is going
to affect their dynamic. She told People magazine,
"They don't think it's going to change, but of course it's going to change...I am concerned
how it's, where I'm gonna fit in."
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