Lost and Found: Mothers, Daughters and Different Worlds
The last in the Lost and Found Series about the changing relationship between daughters and fathers.
The book I am developing centers on changing relationship between a new generation of daughters and their fathers. But one 35-year old woman said something during an interview that captured how the new world of daughters and fathers is also impacting daughters and mothers.
"It's not how mom spent all those years tied to the house like a second class citizen," she said. "It's why? She could have been anything she wanted to be. But she chose to stay home and raise us. She's obviously happy with her decisions. Sometimes I feel like we stole her life."
She captures two sides of a changing relationship between mothers and daughters.
On one side is a powerful emotional bond that endures through the ages. Recent research shows that 80 to 90 percent of women at mid-life say they have a good relationship with their mothers - although many wish it were better. These relationships tend to be complicated by a daughter's guilt over the amount of time they spend together and the inevitable disagreements over a daughter's life choices - particularly the ones that establish autonomy.
One the other side is a new ingredient in the rich stew of emotional connection between mother and daughter. For the first time, a new generation of daughters may have more in common with the world of their fathers than they do with the world of their mothers.
As these daughters are pulled into the orbit of their father's world, they may be missing - possibly ignoring - a mother's contributions to a family and, ironically, to her own success. In selling short the fact that mothers remain the gears and wiring of family dynamics, they can diminish an important component of their own lives and possibilities.
This can be a particular problem for the older end of a generation raised, schooled and encouraged to compete in a world of men. While pioneers of their mothers' generation were feminisms' first wave, most women remained locked in archetype of women past: homemaker, nurturer, giver of unconditional love. If they worked, it was likely to be "women's work"; family-friendly in time demands, transportable, where you can leave and re-enter with ease.
They made their choices - to the extent they were choices - before Title IX democratized the playing fields; before a flood of women into advanced degrees flowed in record numbers into management and the professions; before women were encouraged to fight their way up the same food chain as men.
Some women found themselves, in spite of themselves, silently critical of life decisions made by the women who raised them. Maryanne, a top executive in her father's plastics business, said she is like her father: a confident decision-maker, with a raging sense of urgency. Her mother, by contrast, was always passive in family matters. "Growing up," she said, "dad was making money, the kids were making grades. I was never quite sure what mom did. She took good care of us. But as we got older and more self-sufficient, it's like she was along for the ride. Creating a life in the confines of one's home like she did is a world that is alien to me."
Maryanne is also, however, an example of some of the most interesting - and clearly instructive - situations I encountered: daughters who saw their mothers, later in life, become something different than they were when the daughter was growing up. She dismissed her mother as a sweet, but ineffectual, help mate. Once the children were raised, however, she watched her mother create a new company division, turning it into one of the company's strongest profit centers.
"It amazed me," she said. "She was always the caretaker. And now she was out there working with suppliers and getting customers. It's like she was a different person. But when you look at what she has accomplished, it's obviously who she is."
*The data I compiled and the patterns I've observed are presented as collective experiences. I have honored the confidentiality I promised, by changing names and disguising identities.
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And there they were - my family - Mom and Dad and my 5 brothers waiting for me at the entrance. we all broke down in tears. I did not need a psychologist to tell me - I resented my Mom. Success came easy for her. She was Miss Pennsylvania in her youth, President Law Review, graduated Summa Cum Laude, etc.
Dad and I rekindled our love for astronomy and Painting. One of this day, I will beat him in chess and scrabble, Mom and I hang around - best of friends. Now I know - we are not competitor. Dad and my brothers are helping me with Old Charm. Mom made my curtains.
It's been a long journey, but 'am so fortunate, I turned myself around. There are consequences for my mistakes, and I owned and learned from them - the hard way. @ 27, I am still learning. Mom and I make it a point to share things. I dropped by her Court when I can, to make up for the times I broke her heart to pieces - her only daughter, we are mutually proud of each other.
My family, me and Old Charm - together at last.
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I went to Europe for a month - just me and my back pack. I maxed out my parents 3 credit cards. Upon my return, they threw me out of the house. My brothers were forbidden to see me. I was barely 20, going on 21 and broke.
Faced with a hellish future, I had 2 options - continue being irresponsible, or to make it right. I opted for the latter - rekindle my girlhood dreams. I was determined to make it. Lucky for me, I did not have difficulty looking for a job. I learned to save, use credit responsibly and budget. Peanut butter and jelly was becoming more palatable.
My Practicum in college landed me a dream job - Statisticians. Although, I was becoming financially stable, I had not seen my family in almost 3 years. Christmas and Holidays, I spent alone but going back to Church made my loneliness bearable. I made some friends, but refused to be serious. I was not ready.
I bought my dream home - a dilapidated huge stone house built in 1848, with a carriage house built 30 years later all in an acre and a half. I fell in love, albeit it's sad shape. It reminded me of myself. I moved in exactly on my 23rd birthday - alone. I christened her Old Charm.
My 5 brothers and I grew up with working Baby Boomers parents. Dad worked with United Engineer for 10 years, then decided to build his own company - an engineerin
I've always a good student and never gave my parents any reason to be alarmed. I suddenly changed when I turned 14. I was belligerent and shamefully wild. Although, I still graduated HS in the top 5. Mom and Dad were very alarmed. I fought with them like mad - on nuance issues, and got punished. I refused to get help, and skipped Church all together.
College work was a breeze, I was a Math Major. Numbers spoke to me in a more eloquent tone. My problem got worst. I was missing home badly. I studied hard, and partied hard. I started to drink after exams, but that did not agree with me - hugging the commode. I stopped. My parents were out of their wits. Still, I graduated with honors - though still irresponsible, crass, careless, belligerent, and answered to no one. I broke my mothers heart many times. Funny as it may seem, I actually hurt more inside.
You need to develop some new material.
P.S. Human beings aren't bees, no matter how little your dad pays them.
While I'm not exactly sure that this article was developed properly, I can certainly relate to the message. I often contemplate this issue as I am a dedicated college student with a mother who stayed home with my brother and I until we were in school for a couple years. Even then, she has never worked full time. I always feel guilty for looking down on that lifestyle. I am constantly asking myself how someone can be content with not having a career or purpose of their own. Being a housewife has always perplexed me; it seemed so subservient.
However, now that I am approaching the age that I start thinking about family, I can't help but think of how my children will be affected by what I can already tell will be my career-addicted lifestyle. I want to be successful, but do I want that more than I want to be a good mother? I will not be able to stay home and play and teach my kids at a young age like my mother could. Also, as this author pointed out, I fully believe my mother's careful raising of me has attributed largely to my success. This issue constantly perplexes me as I am torn between the respect I have now grown for my mother's job of raising me and my desire to be so much more than she was professionally.
This issue constantly perplexes me as I am torn between the respect I have now grown for my mother's job of raising me and my desire to be so much more than she was professionally.
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Yes, being a real estate saleswoman or a cubicle worker will trump anything your mother ever did.
For shame.
I pity your poor mother if her daughter looks down her nose at her.
That's funny, I don't recall saying what I wanted to be. Certainly not a real estate saleswoman or cubicle worker.
Even if you work can still play and teach your kids. Don't some men come home and play with their kids and teach them as well or are kids with two parent under one roof still being raised by one parent? Quality is the key here, that is what your kids will remember.
I wish I could get past the myriad of typographical errors and missing words in this article. I got so annoyed at having to guess at the author's meanings, I gave up half way through the article. When an author posts such a poorly written article, it's hard to take their message seriously.
same!
I find the narcisstic navel-gazing even more abhorrent. Somethings are best handled by private sessions with a shrink.
This series has the uncomfortable feel of someone working out their daddy issues in slo-mo in public.
I am 30, the daughter of a working mother. MOst of my friends also had mothers who worked outside the home.
What I decided (and many of my friends decided) is that working and trying to raise a family at the same time is for the birds. I saw how hard it was for my mother to try to balance her career and mothering, and decided I wanted nothing to do with it.
I'm a housewife. I have a college degree and if I had to support my family, I could do it. But I choose not to. I didn't grow up to want my mother's life, or my father's. I looked at the situation and decided my 1950's housewife grandmother was my role model.
I've got the rest of my life to work. My children will be young once. I'm not missing it.
"If I had to support my family, I could do it". That's what you think ...... you are very naive!
You better pray your husband doesn't get tired of paying your bills ...... good luck .......
For my experience most women who work still manage their household and raise kids as well as those who do not. I know a lot of women who after work goes home, cook, clean, and help the kids with the homework. It does make sense that daughters have more in common with the dads that go to work than the daughters than stays home, they probably have more stories to share about the characters they've encountered that day.
I'm a 56 yr old mom of a 34 yr old daughter & my experience has been quite different. There are alot of us who grew up in the mid-50's & 60's who OURSELVES began to change the paradigm of mother-daughter relating. My mother was a RN as am I, but her passivity, rage & lack of self-worth was passed on to me as "the way it is". Through alot of personal soul-searching and hard inner work, I have come out the other side of this poisonous pedagogy. I feel that many women of my age with daughters in their 30's have risen to heights our mothers feared to tread. I don't mean this is a "better than" way, just in a kind of "self-evolution" way.
I have to take issue with your comment that "80-90%" of mid-life women get along well with their mothers. I work almost exclusively with women my age at a large and busy emergency room. I would say the one thing we almost all have in common is a very, very complex and difficult relationship with our mothers, whether they be living or dead. It is this very fact that personally prompted me to strongly desire a close, open, loving and far less control-oriented relationship with my daughter. We have our issues, but they pale next to the hardships I faced with my mom. This is a fascinating topic, one that is not spoken of enough....
I am kind of unsure who this article is talking about exactly. Mothers is their 70s? Daughters in their 40s?
I am in my 50s with daughters in their 20s.
When I was younger I went to the university and then became a career woman. All my friends did. My sisters did. Everyone I knew did. Then we became wives and mothers. Most of us worked through it, but some handled it in different ways....fr
My daughters are now forging their own ways.....o
So I guess I'm wondering who this book is going to be about. Sounds more like my generation than any younger generation of women I know.
Yes, I agree as another woman in her fifties--which generation does this refer to? When I was deep into feminism in the 70's, my father was ironically more supportive and understanding of professional life and independence than my mother, though we were emotionally more close and my father could be quite traditional at times. This shift in relationships happened--with some pain--then, and the complexity of working mothers among my peers has I think created a different model for daughters and sons. They see costs of work as much as its satisfaction as well as the needs for balance and nurture from both parents. Perhaps this allows our daughters to see as people and individuals rather than only a role, something that took me much longer in battling the conventional roles of the 1950's. I put my mother into the role I wished to reject, and then had to acquire some humility to understand why and what she did as herself and own choice--while raising an independent chick.
It always amazes me when I hear people talk about managing a household as if it is some kind of passive work that gets done with little or no effort or strategic planning. How ridiculous! Unless you have done it yourself, it just sounds like some old school husband who never realizes how hard his wife works until she gets sick or dies and he has to do the same work that she always did. Part of being a professional is working hard and making it look easy. Women, in their roles as household caretakers, have been doing just that for centuries. Its called home management. It is a profession, not a side job. And, it requires serious management skills. Appreciation is limited and takes years to develop in those you serve, if it ever does. So it is a good question to ask "why?" we do it at all. The benefit package is weak and not guaranteed. Love alone provides the energy for the work. Success is survival. That's why the work is critical. What we should be asking is why we don't pay mothers what they are worth? Instead we take away their dignity and their worth by calling them homemakers and turning them in to second class beggars once the kids grow up and leave the home. Their livelihood then depends on the longevity of their marriage. Very unfair.
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