Understanding Mother-Daughter Relationships - research - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2001

Mother-daughter relationships are among the most complicated families experience. They often comprise many conflicting feelings, such as love, anger, worry, resentment, envy, and need. According to the Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource, this critical relationship changes as both mother and daughter age, and there are several ways to improve it along the way.

Karen Fingerman, author of Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: A Study of Mixed Emotions, says that each person's large investment in the other is the primary force that complicates relations between mothers and daughters. This investment carries with it much potential conflict, but nonetheless is a good thing. It means having someone who accepts you, no matter what, and wants what's best for you.

According to one of Fingerman's studies, mother-daughter relationships take on different characteristics at various stages of life. When daughters become young adults, the focus is the daughter's efforts to become an adult. While this is rewarding for the mother, it is also a significant expenditure of time and energy that focuses on one person--the daughter. As daughters move into middle age and mothers grow older, their goals are more in sync. They have a mutual and more mature relationship with shared concerns.

Conflict arises in even the best relationships because both mother and daughter care for each other so much. Fingerman recommends acceptance as the key to improving relationships and avoiding crisis. "The best mother-daughter ties are ones where they care so much, they see the other's faults, but want to protect the other from knowing that they see them."