Read an Excerpt
What Did I Do Wrong?
I remember driving my daughter to ballet class and baking tray upon tray of chocolate-chip cookies for her Brownie troop. I chauffeured her to piano lessons, tap dance, swimming, art class, modeling school . . . am I leaving anything out? Oh yes: I didn't allow her to camp out at the beach when she was in ninth grade. She still brings it up, as if this were some form of child abuse.
--Liddy, age fifty-four
Every woman has a mother story. If you begin a sentence with the words, 'My mother',' nine times out of ten the person you're talking to will jump in before you're finished, anxious to tell you about her mother. Mom was too pushy, or too weak. She was demanding, or neglectful. Mom loved me too much, or too little. That's why I'm so messed up
Bookstores are stuffed with tomes offering advice to damaged daughters; therapists' couches sag with the weight of grumpy 'adult children.' In the therapy-happy 1970s and '80s, women were encouraged to view their mothers as nearly godlike, wielding awesome power over their daughter's self-esteem and happiness. In the 1990s, mothers are still being blamed for everything that's gone wrong in their grown daughters' lives. But where is the other side of the story? Where are the mothers' voices? Their stories are in my office--and in this book.
For twenty-five years I've been counseling mothers and their grown daughters, trying to bring together women who see each other as rivals, martyrs, or manipulators, but rarely as equals. I've listened to hundreds of daughters complain (often rightfully) about their mothers' unreasonable or unkind behavior. But at the same time I've gotten a firsthand look at the current generation of daughters, and the picture is not encouraging. Our daughters' expectations are grand: Shouldn't Mom always be there for me, no matter how old I am? Shouldn't she accept me unconditionally? Shouldn't she put my needs before hers? Our daughters' assumptions are naïve: Moms naturally know how to raise children. Moms don't have problems. Moms love to take care of other people.
Our daughters' memories are long: Why did you make me wear orthopedic shoes in the fifth grade? Why did you take my hamster back to the pet store? Why did you throw out my favorite pair of overalls? Mothers, for the most part, are angry and baffled. "Why can't my daughter grow up and get over it?" they ask me. And yes, many daughters do seem to cling to their victim status, even if it means sacrificing a closeness that both mother and daughter genuinely desire.
Family Secrets
When I first decided to become a therapist in 1973, I was already sensitive to the subject of mothers and daughters. At the time I was struggling with five teenagers, each enthralled by the counterculture of the 1960s. My three daughters provided 'challenges' ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, so before I ever entered the university I had already looked to the experts for advice. I was painfully aware of their views on childhood development: any problems a child might have--autism, homosexuality, schizophrenia, lags in development, learning disabilities, acting out--were the mother's fault. According to the professionals, my mothering was at the root of my daughters' angry rebelliousness. The influence of the sixties, the widespread use of drugs, the confusing sexual mores, and even the fact that their father had died when the girls were young, all paled in comparison, supposedly, to my influence on them.
In those days, having problems with your children was shameful. You kept it a secret, especially if you were an aspiring psychologist. Who would go to a therapist who couldn't raise healthy kids? So I stayed quiet and did my own research, trying to cobble together a way to deal with the furor that raged in our household. For some reason, I knew instinctively that I wasn't solely to blame, no matter what the psychology books said. I hadn't been a perfect parent, but I loved my children with all my heart and told them so. There was always food on the table, warmth in the house, loving support, and an opportunity to talk. I knew in my soul that I'd been a good mom, and whatever mistakes I might have made, they didn't add up to the problems I was now having with the girls.
One day when I was in graduate school I decided to get brave. I had been in group therapy for about a year, a required part of the graduate program in clinical psychology. In that year I had never once mentioned that I was struggling with my daughters; I was far too embarrassed. Now I trusted the group enough to reveal my secret and perhaps get some empathy or suggestions from them.
"I've been having a lot of trouble with my girls," I confessed, and mentioned a recent episode where one of my daughters had been caught with drugs. In an instant, the group turned on me. "You must have neglected your daughters," one women declared.
"I love my daughters," I protested. "I've done everything I could for them."
"You must have caused this problem somehow," another student chimed in.
"What did you do wrong? Did you really want children?"
And so it went that day, as one group member after another offered an opinion about my inadequacy, my 'hidden rage,' my errors. Sure, they diagnosed my situation from a psychoanalytic stance using all the latest terminology, but I was brutalized just the same. I felt abandoned and attacked. The group leader, who was the only one who had known about my problems, stood silently by and let them jump me. Later I confronted him: "Why didn't you defend me?" He admitted I was right--he should have intervened. That he didn't is just one small example of the pressure everyone felt to toe the psychology line and blame Mother for her child's behavior.
Help for Moms Like Me
The daughter with whom I had the most trouble back then is now an adult. She's my most caring and dutiful child; I hear from her more often than any of my other children, and she plans every family celebration. Time and love, plus a lot of effort on both sides, changed my angry, uncontrollable girl into a well-adjusted woman and delightful companion. In the first few years of my practice, I acted on faith that this would eventually occur. As I worked on my relationships with my own daughters, I carefully charted the case histories of the mothers and daughters who were my clients. Although my practice was not--and still is not--limited to mothers and daughters, theirs were the most compelling stories, the ones I really took to heart. I wanted to help both mothers and daughters, but over time I became more focused on the mothers' points of view. For one thing, mothers had nobody in their corner. The literature and research all came from the daughters' perspective. Someone had to take the mothers' side, and since I had lived through it myself, I was eager to be that person.
These moms needed a visible, vocal advocate, and I've become that. As the years passed and my practice grew, I began to notice that the troubled mother-daughter relationships seemed to fall across a continuum. At one end were the dependent daughters, whose lives and identities were so enmeshed with their mothers' that both women felt smothered and furious at the other. At the opposite end were the distant daughters, who rejected everything about their mothers, often refusing to visit or even telephone them. In between were less extreme cases, mothers and daughters who were still talking to each other but who both felt unhappy with the relationship. I call the daughters in this group dissatisfied daughters. Nothing ever seems to go right for them; they're always irritable, unhappy, and disagreeable, and their mothers spend hours each day listening to their complaints and trying to solve their problems.
In this book, I'm going to share with you the techniques I've developed for mothers of difficult daughters. With these methods, you'll be able to reshape your relationship with your grown daughter, starting today. I'll help you discover the reasons why things have gone wrong between the two of you, beginning with an honest look at your expectations and hers. I'll reveal the insights I've gleaned from hundreds of hours counseling moms and daughters. Through exercises and case histories, you may finally understand why your daughter can't seem to let go of you, or why you can't fix her unhappiness, or why she still feels betrayed by events that occurred decades ago. But understanding is only half the solution--you'll also get the tools to reconnect with your daughter and try to build a new, more realistic, more loving relationship with her.
No matter what type of daughter you have--dependent, dissatisfied, or distant--or how tense your relationship has become, there is an excellent chance you can turn things around. My methods have worked for hundreds of women, and they can work for you, too. As I tell the distraught mothers who seek my help each week, "Never, never stop trying. Where's there's love, there's hope."
The Myths of Motherhood
The mothers and daughters I counsel come in every shape, age, and color. Within the dependent, dissatisfied, and distant groups there are, of course, dozens of variations. So I was more than a little surprised to realize, after studying them for several years, that these diverse pairs all had one thing in common: The daughters and mothers all had bought into the myth of the perfect mom.
Most mothers and daughters unconsciously assume that somewhere, in some far-off, white clapboard house, there lives a perfect family. In that family, Mom behaves the way a good mother should. Her ideal code of behavior is seldom spelled out, but here are some of her supposed attributes, gathered from the women I've counseled.
Mothers are always available.
Mothers are forever generous.
Mothers are always supportive.
Mothers are unconditionally accepting.
Mothers do not have problems of their own.
Mothers do not get angry.
Mothers do not complain.
Mothers are an endless source of nurturance.
Mothers naturally know how to raise children.
Mothers always put their child's needs first, no matter how old the child.
Mothers are always strong.
It sounds like a tough job description when it's set down in black and white. But not only do daughters believe their mothers should meet these standards; most of the mothers agree! Show them this list, and they'd deny it. But when a mom confides to me a specific problem with her daughter, she'll reflexively revert to self-blame: she wasn't supportive enough, calm enough, insightful enough. In the end, most mothers are still trying to be the faultless, flawless, perfect mom. They are unable to accept themselves as is.
