But today, mothers and daughters have to navigate their different lives, opportunities, and views about being female, and for some mothers and daughters this causes conflict, as they fight over who is right and who is wrong. This dynamic is complicated by women's generational experience with sexism.
One of the key issues I see over and over again is how our female history is defined by how women have been silenced. In our mother's and grandmother's day women were not asked what they needed, felt, thought or wanted. This conversation was entirely silent.
I see in my clients' mother-daughter history maps how our mothers were not heard or emotionally supported, and how this theme causes conflict and misunderstanding, and how it is passed down from mother to daughter.
What I see happening between mothers and daughters when women's needs and feelings are not heard or honored by their family and culture, is that mothers and daughters are being set up to fight. When women's emotional needs are silent, mothers and daughters fight over whose needs get to be met. And when women's lives are restricted by sexist gender roles that limit their choices and freedom, mothers and daughters fight over their lack of freedom.
Finding the reasons for mother-daughter relationship conflict requires a much deeper exploration than women's personality traits, mental or emotional health issues, and hormonal problems. It requires an understanding that it is between mothers and daughters that we see the harm sexism and gender inequality inflicts on women. We see how sexism is internalized and passed on from mother to daughter, and how this disempowerment causes conflict.
We see that mother-daughter relationship conflict is a symptom of families and societies that do not care-for and support women to be fully voiced and free. And we see how powerful the mother-daughter relationship is to challenge and change sexist beliefs and harmful cultural practices. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline.
HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. Suggest a correction. What's Hot. Paul Gosar Over Violent Video. More In Women. Oklahoma Gov. Imagine not wanting to clean your room in THAT household. It is unlikely that she is going to tell you that she had an ex-boyfriend that wanted to kill her father, but instead took her captive for years until she finally fell in love with him. Things that really affect her, and the way she approaches her life, and her choices as a mother.
We hear it all of the time. Motherhood is a sacrifice. She is sacrificing things in her own life to raise you. Maybe its her career, maybe its her figure, maybe its her independence. But she has given things up for you. There are things she wanted to be in her life. Maybe she wanted to be an actress, or maybe a high powered executive. And even if she is these things, maybe she wants to be kinder, more understanding.
Maybe she wants to be more loving. More open. More daring. More careful. She wants you to have the best life you possibly can. Jealousy between mothers and daughters can go both ways. Sometimes we may look at our mothers and think, when she was my age, she was successful at work, she was married to someone who loved her, and she knew exactly what she wanted in her life. I wish I could live up to the example she has set. She may look you and think, look at my daughter, so gorgeous, so headstrong, she lives her life freely and takes chances.
I miss the time when I was as youthful as she is. Unrecognized jealousy can be a huge cause of tension. We should try and recognize that it is jealousy we are feeling and try to turn it into admiration. They need to show them how to work hard, but also how to relax. They need to show us how to cook and clean, while also teaching us that its not our responsibility to do so, just because were women. They want to teach us how to stay home and raise a family, while also teaching us to go to work and have a career.
How to be demure and polite, and still let loose with their friends. No matter how much we fight, or get mad at them, we idolize our mothers. We want to be who they want us to be. But we struggle because we are also our own people. We want them to be proud of us, but sometimes for that to happen we have to make sacrifices.
From the time we are 10 years old until the day we die, we hate unsolicited advice from our mothers. And our mothers love to give it. For them, its protective, they want us to do the right thing, to be the best we can be, so they give tell us the right things to do from their perspective.
As we get older, it is also a way for them to be part of our lives. They want to be needed. To fill that same role of guidance they played when were 9 years old.
0コメント