Mom had Plastic Surgery to look like her 20-year-old Daughter

Spot the difference: Janet, left, has spent £10,000 on plastic surgery to look like her daughter, Jane, right

In this image-conscious age, it is a bittersweet moment for many mothers to confront the fact that their daughter’s beauty eclipses her own.

It is a rite of passage that most women, while far from thrilled, are pragmatic enough to accept as a part of life.

But not 50-year-old Janet. She views the small matter of being in her sixth decade as a mere technicality.

She is amused and proud that friends jokingly refer to her and her daughter as Paris and Chantelle after the platinum blonde socialite and the equally platinum former Celebrity Big Brother contestant.

Some might see this as empowering for a woman who is well into middle age. Others might take the view that it is contrary to the laws of Mother Nature - not that Janet has much truck with her anyway.

As she told the Mail this week: ‘It might sound barmy that I had cosmetic surgery to look like my daughter, but she’s gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want to look like her?

‘The way I see it is that she got her looks from me in the first place - mine have just faded with age.

‘Seeing how attractive Jane is made me want to get my looks back. Now instead of mum and daughter we look more like twins. I had good genes and good skin, but I needed a helping hand to make me feel better about myself.’

Certainly Janet wasn’t always such a head-turner. Just a few years ago, she was a size 14 redhead and felt, she says, dowdy and unattractive.

Not, she insists, that she was ever vain. ‘I didn’t have time for vanity in my 20s as I was too busy bringing up Jane and her brother, Pete,’ she says.

‘I didn’t pay much attention to myself.’

That changed as she entered her 30s and became increasingly disconsolate with her changing figure.

‘Like any woman who’s had children, gravity had started to take its toll on my breasts,’ she says.

Transformation: Janet was a size 14 redhead before undergoing surgery

They’d been small to start with, but they had become saggy and it made me depressed. So I booked in for a boob job. At £4,000 my husband wasn’t best pleased, but I thought it was worth it,’ she says.

Alas, the new breasts weren’t enough to save her marriage.

By the age of 40, Janet, by then divorced, had moved to Spain. Her new partner (who she doesn’t want to name) ran a swimming pool business and she took on secretarial work.

It was a fresh start, but one which was overshadowed when, in 2003, an implant ruptured.

Restorative surgery was needed and Jane took the opportunity to go from a 34C to a DD.

‘I thought if I was going to pay £2,500 I might as well go bigger,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t been that pleased with them the first time round and when Jane came to visit I noticed my bust looked flat in comparison. I wanted to give myself a boost.’

Despite the new breasts, Janet still felt she looked old before her time, and her relationship with her new partner was floundering.

‘We’d been living together for eight years, but it wasn’t working any more. We argued non-stop and finally, in May last year, I decided to move back home to be with my daughter.’

Happily, Jane was more than willing to provide a berth for her mother while she found her feet.

‘It was a tough time and I was a bit of a lost cause,’ says Janet. ‘I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged. I hadn’t lived in Britain for so long that I didn’t have any friends here. It was a terrible time. I knew I had to sort out my life.’

For Jane, a fun night out was an obvious way to cheer up her mum. But well-meaning as it was, for Janet it only reinforced her feelings of inadequacy.

‘I couldn’t find anything decent to wear - having lived in Spain, all I had were shorts, T-shirts and scruffy jeans. I had nothing fashionable and couldn’t borrow anything from Jane because it was all too small.

‘I remember looking at Jane and saying: “I wish I had your figure.” I’d had a body just like hers when I was younger but now I was just a blob.

‘I began to see that in Spain I’d been living the life of a pensioner and had forgotten how to make the most of myself. I may have been pushing 50, but I still wanted to live life to the full, and why shouldn’t I?