At the Alaska SeaLife Center, Aurora—a giant Pacific female octopus—was introduced to J-1, a male octopus. They flashed colors and retreated to a dark corner of the center’s Denizens of the Deep display. A month later, Aurora laid thousands of eggs. Despite the fact that her eggs didn’t appear to develop, and aquarists—animal caretakers—believed the eggs were sterile, Aurora daily sucked in water through her mantle and sent cleansing waves over the eggs, defending them against hungry sea cucumbers and starfish. Even when aquarists, certain the eggs weren’t fertile, began draining her 3,600-gallon tank, Aurora sprayed her eggs, which were exposed and drying on rocks. Aurora’s eggs hatched exactly ten months after her encounter with J-1 (long since deceased); her baby octopi received food through an electronic, automatic feeder in a rearing tank. Although giant Pacific females usually die about the same time as their eggs hatch, mostly because they stop eating for months and spend their energy defending their eggs, aquarist Ed DeCastro said Aurora appeared invigorated and that “she was still tending the eggs.” (She was later euthanized out of concern for her comfort.)
Starting in eighth grade, Natalie loved to criticize Laurie for getting a point of information wrong or having pieces of food caught between her teeth or chewing too loudly or, especially, talking while eating. These were the opening debate topics of the inexorable mother-daughter donnybrook that dominated our house for the next half-dozen years.
My father, who died in 2009, took a dozen medications to combat anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness. A decade ago, he and I visited his psychiatrist to make sure that he was taking them in the right combination. We had a few extra minutes at the end of the session, so I asked my father’s very Freudian psychiatrist why teenage daughters are so critical of their mothers. He said, “All that hormonal energy is coursing madly through a daughter’s body, and she unconsciously senses the tremendous leverage the onset of her fertility gives her, which causes the family to start treating her with more deference. She’s the chance for the family to perpetuate itself. Her mother’s leaving this arena just as the daughter’s entering it. When researchers study this issue [disputes between mothers and daughters], not only does the father invariably side with the daughter”—I can’t remember my father ever doing this with my sister; my mother ruled the roost, regardless—“but so does everybody else. The genes are driving the family to protect the most fertile female. So a good deal of a girl’s anger at her mother has to do with the mixture of power she feels with the onset of fertility and the burden she feels at being the designated bearer of children.” My dad sat next to me, listening to this, nodding and elbowing me in the ribs at appropriate moments, proud of his shrink’s Olympian overview.