Lorelai & Luke: On Being Parents & Their Decisions

One of the readers here at GilmoreGirlsNews left a very thoughtful comment on the recap for "The Prodigal Daughter Returns" – in general, the comments on this site are insightful and really great. I love it. You guys always make me think. This comment, in particular, has had me coming back to read it over and over, so I decided to bring it out and share it, to start a discussion.

Reader "viewer" had this to say (some parts edited out, bolding mine for emphasis):

one aspect of the close relationship between the two is Rory had never seen Lorelai as an impediment to her personal freedom, and we have all seen the episode where Lorelai herself tells Emily that she is Rory’s friend first, and her mother second.

All that is to say that no, I didn’t see the reunion as too easy. It was as inevitable as was the separation. Best friend or not, Rory was a young woman who had reached that point where she had to leave the nest, and go find her own way, both literally and figuratively, and even in the most loving families, the closest parent-child relationships, there has to come a time when the child clambers down from those parental arms and stands on her own feet, and each one of us does it in a different way, with our own individual measure or lack of drama and rebellion, and each parent reacts in their own way, but most understand that painful though it is, it is exactly what the goal of the whole process has been!

So Rory clambered down from Lorelai’s arms and claimed her own life and her own responsibility for it, and like many mothers, single or not, it was extremely painful for Lorelai.

Someone once said that there are two kinds of women, those who live for their spouse, and those who live for their children, and Lorelai seems to me to be a classic example of the latter, which, now that I think about it, may have been one factor in what many, myself included, perceive as Luke’s conflicted feelings about having children with Lorelai – after waiting for eight years to “get” her, with the understanding that since she already has a daughter, second place is the best he can ever hope for starting out of the gate, and we can’t blame him for wanting to think long and hard before handing the biggest chunk of her over to yet another someone else – even if the someone else would be his own child!

I think one of the reasons the show is so popular, and so talked about even after going off the air, is that there is no mother or daughter who cannot relate to at least some aspects of the relationships between Emily and Lorelai, Lorelai and Rory, indefinable yet palpably miasmic things that transcend culture and creed. Whether nightmare or idyll, dysfunction or delight, the relationship between mother and daughter is like no other, it is a story that never ceases to tell itself to those who live it, and all whose lives are touched by it, a story that the Gilmore Girls tells remarkably well for what appears at first glance to be essentially an hour-long sitcom!

I do think the re-appearance of Jess, or more significantly, his book, was, as you said earlier, something of a wake-up call, a reality check, for Rory, but I also think that her decision to return to school was just a natural progression. She had taken that big step, made that necessary separation from her mother that she had to make as part of growing up, and once she had done that, she was able to take that next step up the ladder of young adulthood and resume that close relationship with Lorelai, and resume her own personal aspirations and life goals, no longer as a child, but as a young woman!

Hopping over to the Luke and April subplot, I don’t think Luke wants to hide April from Lorelai so much as he wants to hide Lorelai from April, and at one point he says as much – he does not want April to be so dazzled by Lorelai that he fades into the background, his stolid affections, he feels, could be no match, in the eyes of a young girl, with the elemental force of nature that has so completely captured his own heart. He does not mind walking through the rest of life in Lorelai’s shadow, but when it comes to his daughter’s love, he wants to be the one who shines!

And, there is also an element of uncertainty on Luke’s part about his future with Lorelai, and this is more than understandable. If there is any chance that Lorelai is not going to be around for good, he does not want April to become attached to her, and then what happens if Lorelai decides to go run an inn in the South of France?… We are talking, after all, about Lorelai, and Luke does not know what she is liable to do now that her immediate parenting duties are past her any more than we do, nor frankly, any more than Lorelai herself does!

So, you can probably see why this comment has had me thinking and thinking. It really pulls together so many of the loose ends of the show, and in a way I hadn’t really considered before. Yes, Lorelai had been considering a big move in her life, but it was never resolved. So, there’s still a big "what if". And, in therms of the mother-daughter relationship, thinking of it in terms of Rory needing to leave the nest and make her own mistakes, and Lorelai knowing she has to do it, makes a lot more sense to me. It’s not so much about whether this was a big fight for them or not, but more than Rory needed to be her own woman.

So, thinking about things this way, I admit I have more respect for the whole series of events than I did before. I was always annoyed with Lorelai for being "immature" in her treatment of Rory during that time of her life, but really it was a strong stand that she made. One she knew she had to. She may not have done it out of the pain Rory’s decision caused her, but on what Rory’s decision showed her was necessary. So, perhaps it seemed the reunion was "easy" because the fight was not substantial – it was the natural end to a journey, more than anything.

Now, the whole April & Luke thing with Lorelai still nags at me in some ways, but perhaps we can discuss them now. What motivates Luke as a parent, and why is it necessary for him to stand on his own?

Image: used with permission by Newscom Tags: gilmore girls, lorelai gilmore, luke danes, rory gilmore, mother daughter, relationships