Hero of her Story

Mother/Daughter Relationships Can Be Complex

I coach a lot of brave, growth warrior mamas in my coaching practice. Some of us feel like we are reinventing the wheel so to speak with how to move through motherhood and have healthy relationships with our grown, young-adult daughters.

It’s very different these days for our young adult daughters than it was for us as mothers fifteen, twenty years ago. It is more difficult to truly Launch and figure out Adulting.

And so, the question becomes; how to establish an adult relationship with our young adults, in such a way where you can feel more connected and ultimately have the relationship that you want moving forward?

Often times, mothers and daughters are still working through outdated ideas of how mothers ‘should be’ and how daughters ‘should be.’  I think the ‘shoulds’ we place on ourselves and on other people, especially on our daughters, can really get in the way for true connection and authenticity in our relationships.

It's About Managing Expectations

• Don’t assume your daughter will grow up and want the same things you want.

I thought that because I taught my daughter to appreciate the outdoors, the simple life with animals and farm land, etc., she’d want the same kind of life. It sounds a little ridiculous when I see this expectation on paper, but deep down, without knowing it, I assumed this to be the case.

We were standing shoulder to shoulder on top of the Empire State Building when she was a freshman in high school, and I could see that she loved the big city and all the energy the big city had to offer. It was then that I knew she would lead a very different life than I had imagined.

I had to learn to not make this mean that we couldn’t be close in other ways. And so I learned to hold space for the paradox of helping her learn to fly while also acknowledging my sadness that someday she would fly far away.

• Motherhood is a paradox of giving your all, only to learn how to let go.

And this is not a bad thing. The ultimate irony in all of it is learning that the beautiful humans we are giving life to will ultimately leave and live their own lives. It can feel a little heartbreaking when this realization hits with full force. Our hearts can literally break open. But those cracks are how the light gets in. And our capacity to love increases as we allow this process to unfold.

• When daughters pull away during their teen years, it may be a bumpy road, but you will make it through stronger if you can support each other versus turning away from each other.

When my daughter developed a full-on eating disorder, I had to draw upon a deep sense of trusting myself that I hadn’t failed her, and that she had what it took to face recovery with courage.

I researched the best treatment centers possible for her recovery, making sure they had support systems in place to involve our entire family – since I knew that eating disorders do not occur in a vacuum. I knew Kate would need the full support of our entire family in order to heal.

I also vetted her therapists and made sure they knew their stuff with Intuitive Eating, Systems Theory, and family support.

• Trust yourself mamas: Remember that your relationship is always evolving and will hit many ‘reset’ points along the way.

As moms, we are offered the opportunity to develop the capacity to trust ourselves and our children – that we have everything we need inside of us to learn the things we need to learn, and to live life from the dictates of our agency.

Our greatest gift we can give our children is the vision that they can trust themselves and that we support them in their journey of discovering how to do so.

As always, reach out for support if you are navigating a tricky mother/daughter dynamic right now. I'm here to help you learn the tools I've learned, which can make a big difference in your ability to enjoy your relationship with your daughter for years to come, or not. Join the newsletter here for more bite sized knowledge nuggets as well as coaching opportunities. 

Love you friends.

You've got this!