Mother & Daughter Relationships

Written by Julie Hawkins on September 22, 2017. Posted in Boundaries.

Over the last 6 years I’ve used all the skills I have (and I have many) gotten help from others and have still been unable to reconnect in what I call a meaningful relationship with my daughter. The results of my efforts often feel painful and disappointing, yet I persist; she is and always will be my daughter.

Recently I gave several readings with a mother/daughter theme so I paid attention. I wondered what I insight I could learn from other people’s readings that would provide some peace for my own relationship.

Here’s what I learned in general:

Mother/daughter relationships are challenging for many reasons, no matter how close mother and daughter were during the child’s minor years, there just seems to be a natural “parting of the ways” in adulthood. Never having had my mother in adulthood (my mother died when I was 15) I do not have the benefit of this perspective. It may very well have happened the same way for my mother and I. I imagine that daughters want to grow up and be on their own and don’t want to rely on or confide in mom at some point. Ugh, that’s a dagger in the heart! But I guess they just don’t need mom like they used to, unless they have children (that’s a whole other topic).

Here’s what else I learned. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s wrong. Again, I think it’s just a function of a daughter wanting to be her own person. Daughters, no matter how wonderful they are, forget that mothers are human too and have real lives and feelings; feelings that are often more powerful than can be explained or understood unless the daughters too are mothers.

Also, the mother/daughter challenge seems to transcend age. I’ve given readings to women in their 60s whose mothers are living and it’s just as much of a challenge for them as for women decades younger.

Then there are the boundaries, or lack thereof. Listen, I grew up without a mother role model and when I was young my parents thought I could make adult decisions. Oddly enough I could however it did not replace the lack of education in boundary formation and enforcement. I had a very basic understanding of boundaries and did the best I knew how when setting them with my daughter. In turn, I wasn’t very good at teaching her about boundaries. So when my daughter one day said to me that I needed to work on my boundaries, she was right, although I had a different opinion of what that work was.

When you let someone step on your boundaries or don’t have a clear understanding of what or how to set them, you act it out on others. It can be a daunting task to learn how to lovingly set and enforce boundaries. It has taken me a lifetime, which is why I’m so passionate about teaching other women the right way and the right language to communicate expectations and boundaries. I sure hope that one day soon my daughter will see me as the brilliant, supportive and compassionate woman and mother I am and we can work on growing those boundaries together. Until then, I’ll keep working on my book – all about boundaries.

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