The Mother-Daughter Relationship

The mother-daughter relationship is truly the mother of all relationships.  The struggle to find the right blend of intimacy and independence, of connection and control, is basic to any relationship, but is especially intense between mothers and daughters.  A mother said of her grown daughter, "Our conversations are the best and the worst of all possible conversations."  They can be the best because, as one woman put it, "Who else can I tell I got a good deal on toilet paper?" Here is someone who is as interested in the details of your life as you are.  On the other hand, they can be the worst: Daughters complain that their mothers are critical, never failing to mention their hair, clothes and weight--or how they raise their own children.  Mothers feel that talking to their grown daughters can be like walking through a minefield: you never know what's going to set her off.  Where a mother sees caring--offering suggestions for improving her daughter's appearance or her life-- a daughters sees criticism.  There's an irony underlying this

relationship: The person a daughter most wants to think she is perfect is also the one most likely to see her faults--and mention them.  And it can go the other way too; sometimes it is the daughter critiquing her mother's hair, clothes, and weight.

Mothers and grown daughters tend to overestimate the other's power and underestimate their own.  For example, a mother gives her daughter advice about her impending purchase of a condo.  The daughter is annoyed, protesting "I can handle this."  Then a few weeks later she tells her mother how helpful a friend has been-- and it's the same advice!  The mother wonders, "Didn't it count when I said it?"  The answer is, what she says counts too much. Anyone can give advice on finding a mortgage, but no one else can give a woman the precious reassurance that her mother believes she is competent and capable.

Mothers and daughters subject each other to a level of scrutiny one usually reserves for oneself.  "My mother is losing her eyesight," a woman said, "but she can still spot a pimple across the room."  Where the mother sees caring (maybe she has learned of a new cream to dry pimples), the daughter sees criticism.  In fact, both caring and criticizing are there.  A mother may acknowledge this and try to bite her tongue, or a daughter may remind herself that comments about her appearance--or how she decorates her house--really do show caring: who else would pay such close attention?

When a mother and daughter speak, any comment can take on layers of meaning that would not be there between friends.  For example, a mother begins a phone conversation, "I miss you," and the daughter says, "Why do you miss me? We spoke a week ago."  She heard the implication that her mother thinks she should have called.  This meaning probably comes from conversations they had in the past; it's true the mother would like her daughter to call more often, but she didn't think she had said that in the conversation.  A mother who heard her daughter give a presentation says, "You looked fabulous in that suit!" and the daughter was disappointed rather than pleased; she wished her mother would pay more attention to what she said and less to what she wore.

Mothers, for their part, often feel left out of their grown daughters' lives, or hurt that their daughters don't confide in them, because for girls and women talk is the glue that holds a relationship together; your best friend is the one you tell everything to.  So, whereas a father might say, "Don't worry about it; she'll tell you when she's ready," a mother might feel, "I thought we were closer than that; if she'd told me, I could have helped her."