She may be a grown woman, but Ann Lister still likes to sit on her mother’s lap.

“My first love and my first relationship was with my mom,” Lister said.

It’s a bond that she and her mother, Molly Roberts, still share. Even though Lister is now raising her own family with husband Ian, she knows her mom is just a phone call away.

After giving birth to two boys, Roberts and her husband Lynn were convinced their third child would be a boy. She brought blue blankets and clothes to the hospital, but experienced quite the surprise when little baby Ann arrived.

“I just held her for the longest time and we stared at each other,” Molly said.

Ann grew up on Orcas with two older brothers, Paul and Mathew. She and her mom were very close and would have long “chats.” When Ann went to college at Bard, she realized that some women did not have such healthy relationships with their mothers.

Ann met Ian when she was 17 and he was 23 – and they’ve been together ever since. Ian is also the baby of his family. Their kids are Rowan, 13, Ewan, 10, and Flora, nine.

“I always said I would never duplicate my family’s birth order and the genders – but I did exactly that,” laughs Ann. “I am raising a different version of the same children my mother raised … my kids are so different from me – and I love it.”

From her mom, Ann says she learned to get to know her children as individuals. With multiple kids, she said it’s important to have a different relationship with each one but also keep it fair and equal.

Molly says Ann’s parenting is a little less structured than her approach.

“She and Ian spend more time with the kids, they take them on trips on the weekends,” Molly said. “It’s more chaotic … but also exciting and interesting.”

Ann credits her husband for contributing a different energy to their familial unit.

“Ian has shaped me as a mother by being a great husband and a great dad,” she said. “He also brings a whole other family culture to the table.”

Ann, who is a bookkeeper, comes from a long line of working mothers. Molly was a teacher as was her mother; she’s currently a hospice nurse, and also works part-time at Four Winds Camp.

“I think a lot about how I wasn’t aware of all the things my mom did,” Ann said. “Now I think: ‘God, how did my mom do all that?’ She was so patient.”

In 2008 at age 39, Ann was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was an experience that Molly went through when she was 44.

“It was so great to have my mom who went through the same thing at the same age,” Ann said.

Molly adds: “The big difference is that she had three young kids in the house – I didn’t.”

The Listers got through the biggest challenge of their lives with grace and strength. Ian was with Ann every step of the way and their kids accompanied them to the hospital. She is now cancer-free.

“It changed our family,” Ann said. “Our kids became aware that I could die. They were right in the middle of it … they have a deeper understanding of not hurting people you love because you don’t know when you’ll lose them.”