Getting along with Mom

Advice for daughters
If you have trouble getting along with your mother, you're not unique. Here's a look at three mother-daughter duos and the struggles they face to keep a good relationship.

Don't blame mother
Maureen Enright* and her six siblings are not fond of their mother's husband, whom she married 30 years ago. They believe he is verbally abusive to their mom and unwelcoming to them.

Enright, 44, felt abandoned by, and took out her displeasure on, her mother. She blamed her mother's rocky existence for her own difficulties.

Pamela Barrett, a psychologist in private practice in Edmonton, says it's not unusual for a daughter to feel betrayed when a divorced mother gets involved with a new man. But whether or not Mom is actually abandoning her daughter is another issue.

In this case, Barrett says, Enright might try to understand the battered woman syndrome. Her mom might not be able to stand up for herself. “This has nothing to do with betraying the children. It has only to do with the mom's own issues.”

Accept mom as she is
For as long as Honour Shute can remember, her mother dictated the terms. It was her house and it was Shute's responsibility to follow the rules. “My mother is very self-centered,” says Shute, a 34-year-old legal secretary who lives in Toronto. “She put a lot of restrictions on my life.”

Her mother grew up in a doting family in which “there wasn't any real discipline,” says Shute. “The way she treated me growing up made me feel that what I did had no validity.”

Shute grew into adulthood lacking confidence and struggling to make decisions.

When a mother is so focused on her own needs that she can't see her daughter's, the daughter risks losing her own identity. “She's had to put her own self away in order to please Mom,” explains Pat Archer, a psychotherapist in private practice in Toronto.

“Sometimes the daughter puts her own self away to such an extent, she can't even access it.”

To find herself, the daughter must go back determinedly and reclaim all the parts she lost along the way. She can do that through psychotherapy.

Too close for comfort?
Lauren Robinson, a 31-year-old Toronto caterer, loves her mother dearly. Indeed, so close are they, her husband has occasionally felt overshadowed by the intensity of their relationship. But Robinson has always maintained that it's a double-edged sword. Because they're so close, her mother feels she has the right to comment on her daughter's life more than Robinson welcomes. “She's a very critical person,” Robinson sighs.

For daughters in such relationships, Gibson advises composure. A mother who's alternately critical and caring is more normal than the daughter may care to think. And the outlook is hopeful. During the good times, mother and daughter can discuss how to prevent future disruptions. “When disruptions occur, they can talk about them and not pretend they didn't happen,” says Gibson.

*Names have been changed

mother's day