Mothers and daughters

When I was a little girl, I idolised her. To me, she was nothing short of a goddess. She was dazzling and glamorous and I’d watch in awe as she painted her already beautiful face with makeup. I’d try on her heels and faux fur coats and drape myself in her sparkling jewellery — wishing and hoping that one day I, too, would be as fantastical a being as she.

She was fearless and brave. When I woke from a bad dream, I would slip in the darkness to her side, climbing under her covers, knowing I would always be quietly welcomed and fiercely protected — the sound of her heartbeat and the warmth of her arms all the assurance I needed to fall back into a fear-free sleep. She was the cleverest person I’d met. There was no question she couldn’t answer or problem she couldn’t solve. She was miraculous — the best mummy in the world.

Sadly, as I reached puberty, my mother tumbled from the lofty pedestal I had put her on as she became — to 13-year-old me — the most unenlightened, socially inept, idiotic and daggy person I knew. The invisible ties that had bound us so tightly snapped and communication between us deteriorated to a series of screaming matches.

I spent hours sulking in my room, entrenched in self-absorbed teenagedom and desperate to be away from her. I wondered why she had changed and why she hated me, one moment yearning for our former closeness, the next wishing I was someone else’s daughter.

My mother and I both survived my girlhood, in spite of our best attempts to drive each other nuts during the rebellion of my turbulent teen years. Now, in my 30s and a parent myself, she is my dear friend. And I adore her as much as I did when, eyes smeared with her gaudy blue eye-shadow (it was the 70s, after all,) I played happily in her wardrobe.

The relationship between mother and daughter can be both beautiful and explosive — often at the same time. You love her and you hate her. Sometimes, she is the last person you want to see, but she’s often the first one you turn to for counsel. When you’re feeling down, the visceral desire to hear her voice can become an almost physical longing. The wildly oscillating feelings that occur between mothers and daughters over the years make for a complicated relationship that at its worst can be soul destroying and at its best can be a powerful and magical thing.

So why is the mother-daughter relationship so fraught with complications? Freud believed a battle for the attention and love of the husband and father created early jealousy and tension between mother and daughter. While some research does suggest that children tend to bond more closely with the parent of the opposite gender, it is a theory that oversimplifies this most important of familial relationships.

Gisela Preuschoff, family therapist and author of Raising Girls, believes the unique nature of mother and daughter relationships is primal and begins even before birth. “The unborn female baby already has the egg cells of her future babies inside. So, in a sense, your daughter has been inside the mother of the mother. As well as creating an intense connection, this can transport both positive and negative qualities.”

A mother has an enormous responsibility to nurture and guide her daughter into becoming well-balanced, positive, happy and successful young woman, which is no mean feat in today’s society. A mother needs to educate and encourage her daughter to break away from old-fashioned ideas of a woman’s role in the world and arm her with the tools to make her own decisions and the skills she needs to face the challenges women encounter in the 21st century.

In her book, Preuschoff also suggests that before we start thinking about how we should raise our daughters, we need to get in touch with our own beliefs about women and femininity. Changing our own thought and behaviour patterns can help ensure we do the best job we can to raise socially responsible, clever, affectionate daughters who can handle the challenges life will throw at them.

Ian Grant, one of New Zealand’s leading parenting gurus and co-author (with his wife Mary) of Growing Great Girls, believes that, as a daughter’s first and ultimate role model, a mother should lead by example and demonstrate her pride in being a woman. “It’s from their mother that a girl learns how to be a woman. They need a role model who’ll show them that the brain and soul are more important than a woman’s looks and body, but it’s important to look after the health of those things as well. If you respect yourself, that is the best gift you can give her.”

It is a theory with which Gisela Preuschoff concurs. “A girl knows from the age of two or three that she will become a woman and she sees her mother as an everyday model. Though she will have her own ways, she will always learn from you — attitudes both good and bad.”

Girls learn how to control familial relationships from a young age and parents (especially dads) have a stronger tendency to give in to their daughters than to their sons, in no small part due to daughters’ capacity to cleverly manipulate situations. And, while parents should love all their children without condition, they should not allow their daughters to wrap them around their little fingers. They need to know when to say no to them.

Nor should mothers allow their daughters to fall into the trap of what Preuschoff calls “learnt helplessness” — instead encouraging self belief and a can-do attitude in their daughters from a young age. A girl needs to learn to stand on her own two feet and be able to negotiate without fluttering her eyelashes. A young girl who is taught to speak up for herself and not back away from problems and responsibilities will be empowered to become a strong woman.

While most mothers and daughters have a close and intense relationship, the primal bond between these two can lead to both great friendship and great strain, the first signs of which often occur at early puberty. Even the smoothest sailing of relationships between mother and daughter can run aground as a daughter starts the push to find and establish her own identity.

“The mother and daughter relationship has to be worked on because mothers often see their own worst side in their teenage daughter and daughters will want to experiment for themselves in life, which is a healthy thing,” says Ian Grant.

A daughter may start to push her mother away as she Deals with a whole raft of confusing new feelings and emotions. She needs the space to get her head together. This might mean long periods shut away alone in her room and, as she struggles to become her own person, it may also herald the start of irrational and sometimes downright nasty outbursts, usually aimed squarely at her mum, in a subconscious fight for control.

Boundaries are important. Mothers often want their daughters to learn from the mistakes they made and often offer advice that could be interpreted by a confused teen as criticism or controlling behaviour. This in turn leads to more arguments. While a mother may just want what she believes is best for her daughter she needs to understand that her daughter has the right to make her own mistakes and needs the opportunity to step back and try to fix the problem herself in order to build self-esteem.

Conversation forms a huge part of women’s relationships with other women. In the wild world of mothers and daughters — where both speak to each other in both better and worse ways than they would dare speak to anyone else — secrets are shared and issues discussed; and, while it can make them vulnerable, it can also provide a great source of comfort to both. The words a mother uses when talking to her daughter are very important: the mother who voices pride in her daughter will have a much better relationship than one who voices disappointment.

In a modern world

Mothers of teen daughters today have an additional concern to deal with as Western culture has never been more toxic to impressionable girls. It is essential to equip teenage girls with the wisdom to see the value of individuality and independence from her peers, which is difficult in our media-saturated and appearance-driven society. Commercial greed has swallowed up old values and created for girls a set of unrealistic “ideals” to sell magazines and music in which less beautiful women have a marginal place.

Girls are bombarded at every turn with negative, distorted and superficial portrayals of women, and a mother needs more than ever to teach her daughter to value qualities other than outward appearance and to be comfortable in her own skin. Parents of both sexes need to develop in their girls a strong enough sense of her own value that she won’t be sucked in to this image-driven hype.

Grant believes our modern culture is shallow. “If your teenage daughter enters her teens equipped with nothing but her good looks … she’s in deep trouble. I think you have to really inspire your daughter; you’ve got to challenge her for great things; you’ve got get her into books where females have done great things in the world — courageous women who stood up for what was right and those who achieved excellence.”

Preuschoff also suggests that mothers should discuss their own lives and the lives of other positive female role models to inspire their daughters to greater things. “Share your own opinions about life, religion, politics, success, career … but discuss these things without lecturing.”

If a daughter is having a tough time finding her way through the murky waters of adolescence and image, the best thing a mother can do to help is to stay true to herself and give her daughter the OK to do the same. “During those turbulent years, be as solid as a rock. Don’t take it personally. You are the wise woman — and she is just searching for her way. A mother needs to be a light in all the darkness,” Says Gisela Preuschoff.

The good news is that this is just a phase in the process of growing up and if a mother continues to quietly support her daughter and make sure she knows she is still on her side during this testing time, it will soon pass and the relationship will survive teenage drama.

My own mother battled through the teenage years and says she’s now close to her daughters. “In a special way I don’t think I can be with my son. Not because I’m not close to my son but because, in my adult daughters, I have friends that I am proud of. They are women that I trust, that I can talk to about all the emotional things we women consider important and men don’t like to talk about.”

The secret to a successful relationship between mother and daughter is in understanding that motherhood is a constant tussle with feelings of love, fear, pride, sorrow, joy, hurt and responsibility and it can be overwhelming, but there will always be these mixed emotions.

Every mother wants her daughter to be happy and succeed, but as she does and leaves the nest, maternal pride can be obscured by a feeling of being left behind — but this doesn’t have to be the case. By loving her, respecting her, talking to her, listening to her and valuing her as a unique individual, you will help your daughter develop all her gifts and talents and grow into an adult female you’d want to call a friend.

Both Raising Girls by Gisela Preuschoff and Growing Great Girls by Ian and Mary Grant are currently available in good bookstores in Australia and New Zealand.