Yourpurelife.com | Mother daughter relationship

YOUR PURE LIFE

One of the earliest and most profound bonds women form with each other is that of mother and daughter.

Frances Nadeau in a recent article stated: "Understanding the mother daughter relationship is critical to young adult girls because a daughter bonds with her mother in a complex, interdependent association that often inhibits a daughter from establishing her own identity".

At the beginning of mother daughter relationships when you're just a child, you think your mother is a goddess. You smudge your face with her lipstick and wear her jewelry and high heels, desiring to be just like your mum. It is like that until you are about thirteen, when she abruptly becomes the most uninformed, irrelevant, off the planet dragon around, and you can't get far enough away from her. In the rough and tough teen years of mother daughter relationships, the main form of communication for the next five years or so will be a few words, "No way mum!" And then, somewhere amid your twenties and thirties, if you're fortunate, she becomes your greatest buddy again.

Will the mother accept you her daughter as a grown-up? Does she have faith in you to be self-sufficient on small issues as well as large-who have you become , how do you express your sexuality, what about your job, what do you do with your money? Allowing daughters be their own woman is a universal problem for mothers emerging out of mother daughter relationships.

Mothers and daughters, who have difficulty with their mother daughter relationships as adults, often duplicate the old patterns of control and upheaval from childhood. They still can't hear each other. The daughter will hear the mother make a remark and she'll think, 'She wants to be in charge still.' And the mother will inadvertently say something that is totalling controlling, but was not meant to be. In the meantime, when the daughter responds, the mother hears nothing but anger-in a remark that does indeed convey anger but another message as well: "I love you, and aren't we able to do this differently?"

Most mothers are encouraging of their daughters within their mother daughter relationships, they want to be helpful to their daughters, and feel very bewildered by them. One of the things observed quite regularly is that the mother knows so very little about her own self, that she's giving too much importance on how her daughter turns out rather than, 'What do I know about myself and how do I feel about myself?' Daughters can model a great deal from a mother who is self-aware of herself."

The dread of growing up to be like one's mother has long been so common among Western women that it has a name. But rather than being true in reality, this primary care giver of our childhood will be very a different to the woman emerging from girl of childhood. The nature and dynamic of mother daughter relationships will change, as two maturing women face each other. Of course the small girl who has now become a woman in her own right will be always younger, maybe because of youthfulness, more attractive, with life still ahead of her. The mother, with her wealth of experience can offer wise insight and knowledge, and providing they both enter maturity together, they will gain so much from one another.

One of the bigest challenge between mother and her adolescent daughter is to bridge the communication gap. "This is a mother and daughter who share a very strong bond," says the clinical psychologist. "It's just that daughter is entering a new phase in her life -- womanhood -- and the expectations and perimeters of their relationship have to adjust to that."

Daughter too is responsible for improving communication and should begin trying harder to express herself. In those moments of intense struggle, over grades or other points of contention, there's nothing wrong with saying "Mom, maybe we need to step back. Can we talk about this after dinner?"

As daughter moves toward womanhood, both mother and daughter have to recognize that their needs and styles of communication are different right now. Adolescents are normally going to be halting in their approach to talking about things. They're in many ways unsure of themselves.

As adults we're eager to know all we can about our kids at this point. We want to know they feel secure. We want to know if they're feeling peer pressure at school. But they're naturally more withdrawn during puberty.

Mothers must learn not to take daughter's reticence personally, but rather accept that she needs space to work things out in her own way.

As adults, we generally organize our thoughts with relative ease and present them in a coherent fashion. Not true for adolescents. They are often processing their feelings as they speak. And unlike adults, they might present their thoughts at what seem like odd or unpredictable times -- not during supposed "quality time" such as over a meal, but while you're in the middle of mopping the floor, for example.

It's important, to remind yourself to be open and patient even at these awkward times. So if your child begins a conversation by saying "There was a fight in school today ..." and you break in with "What did I tell you about hanging out with troublemakers?" you have effectively lost an opportunity for intimacy.

"I see now that I have to let up, that by pushing I may push her away from me, and I don't want that," says one mother. "I want to be able to give her the room to be the woman she is becoming. It's a beautiful thing, not something I need to fear."

She adds that when her daughter is studying these days, she goes out of her way to say, "I'm proud to see you doing your best." For daughter's part, she says the positive reinforcement has helped relieve some of the pressure she felt to meet her mom's high expectation. She feels more valued and appreciated for who she is.

Do recognize that young adolescents are grappling to define and understand themselves.

Don't expect teens to talk like the loquacious little ones they were a few years ago.

Do practice restraint and patience when your teen is trying to communicate. No one likes to be interrupted, and it takes teens a little longer than adults to process their feelings.

Do give them space and honor their privacy.

One of the most powerful themes in accounts of mother-daughter relationships in western culture has been that of connection and loss. Typically, a daughter’s marriage (or desire for a man) threatens the primary and intense bond between her mother and herself. The readings in the course, chosen from several historical periods and cultural traditions and including some feminist psychoanalytic theories, are designed to analyze and challenge the connection-loss model for mother-daughter relations.

You love your mother.
You love your father.
You’re furious with your mother.
You’re furious with your father.
Sometimes in the same five minutes. Ah, it’s just a typical mother daughter, mother son, father daughter, father son, adult child-parent relationship.

Relax. You’re not alone; in fact you’re in the majority. The ups and downs of mother daughter relationships or of any adult child parent relationships are the subject of movies and television as well as the reality for most of us.

No matter your lifestyle or age – you’re still your parents’ child and still subject to their demands, criticisms, and manipulations, all of which can transport you back to your don’t-push-my-buttons adolescent self.

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