Family Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Adult mothers and daughters
I am blessed with two daughters in their 30's, both married. One lives 4 hours away and the other lives 8 hours away.
Please tell me what makes a healthy adult relationship between mothers and daughters. What you think is helpful, or not?
thanks!?
Re: Adult mothers and daughters
What kind of relationship do you have now, and what do you think you can do to improve it?
The sort of thing that is a relationship killer is offering advice/criticism when none is asked for; commenting unfavorably on the child's spouse or childrearing practices; offering money to get them out of jams; buying large expensive gifts and otherwise not treating the hcild as an adult. Dont allow your child to sit and kvetch over and over to you about their spouse; it's not your job to hate their dh/dw, and it's not your job to fight their fights for them.
Off the top of my head: guilt-trips and passive-aggressive remarks, or any comments that are really veiled criticism on how to run their lives better can chip away at a relationship. Trust in the way you raised them and allow them to make mistakes/decisions, tell them you love them a lot, have fun with them - you can be an imperfect person and friend now, not just a parent that has to have all the answers.
I agree with Sue_Sue in regards to their spouses, assuming they have the foundation for a good marriage, then learn to support the marriage not them as an individual when faced with problems - encourage them to have those conversations with their spouse, not you.
I really enjoyed the 2 weeks my mother visited after my DD was born. I thought it was going to be awful. My mom means well but she has a hard time letting go of "being the parent" all the time and I thought it would be a struggle to have a newborn and deal with my mom bossing me around. What I didn't realize is how much help you need with a newborn in the house. With so much to do it was wonderful to have a loving and capable adult with my best interest at heart to help. She really filled the role of "support" by following my lead, encouraging me to sleep and taking some hard "shifts" with the baby at night. One night she even drove to the pharmacy for pads for me at midnight using the GPS to get her back to our home.
She is so capable and ready to be "the mom" that I think it may be hard for her when I am independent and don't "need" anything. But that's how healthy adults interact. Sometimes, her ideas of what's "best" for me clash with my own and I resent her trying to talk me out of things or insist I do it her way. Especially small things.
Last year, for DD's 2nd birthday I traveled to her and made plans with nearby relatives to celebrate. Since I was coming from out of town, I wanted to spend the day at the Children's Museum and order pizza for dinner. She was ten kinds of horrified that I wasn't doing a traditional roast or something "better" than pizza for dinner. In the end, I went food shopping and made an acceptable dinner for everyone. It was my own fault for caving, but I remember thinking that this wasn't what I wanted (the birthday girl barely ate it) and I felt very bullied into it. This year, we stayed home for her birthday. I think that's part of being healthy, too. Sometimes you just have to know how people "are going to be", stop kidding yourself, stop making them change and just re-adjust what YOU are willing to do. This year, I didn't do the big family dinner at all. I know my mom missed us, but it was best for me and kept me from walking into another birthday party with a chip on my shoulder and carrying resentment from last year. Who knows what I'll do next year? But at least this way, I feel like I have a bit of a fresh start.
I think another great way to have a good relationship with your daughters is to not pry information out of them. Let them tell you what they want to tell you and keep it confidential. You develop trust over time and each time she realizes she can tell you something in confidence about herself, she will want to be more open with you.
Sadly, I have the opposite with my mother. I always wish I could talk to her about a lot of things and instead I can't because nothing is held in confidence or without judgment. I hope that if I ever have a daughter one day, that I will be able to create a safe environment for her to feel like she can be herself and trust me enough to come to me if she wants to talk and that she will know that I will accept her for whoever she is/becomes and respect her for whatever she decisions she makes in her life, even if I don't agree with them.
i think my mom and i have a really great relationship. one thing i love about her and our relationship is that we do talk alot so i tell her almost everything. she gives me advice but doesn't get upset with me if i choose to not take her advice.
Wholeheartedly agree.
Having a life of your own that is separate from your adult children is important. A parent's purpose should shift when the kids are grown and out of the nest (at least in my opinion) to not be centered around the adult kids.
I agree, but: Do people really bring their friends into arguments with their spouses? I usually don't tell anyone I've had a fight with my H; I only very occasionally vent about him to my imaginary internet friends. I don't want to be in the middle of my friends' marital troubles; why on earth would I put them in the middle of mine?
In short: Don't drag *anyone* into your fights, but *especially* your children.
I agree with both of these. Since my borther and I have moved out, my mom has really made a life for herself and my dad. They travel a lot more, they are involved in their community activities, and they have people over all the time (they did these things when we were home, but not nearly as much).
My mom and I are very close, even though we live almost a 24 hour drive from eachother. She goes to work later than I do, so I call her on my way to work every morning. She says I'm her alarm clock, because it's always right around when she needs to get up to run before work. It's our couple of quiet moments together (my dad and DH are at work already) to talk about our lives and joke about what we're making for dinner. For us, it's part of what makes our relationship special.
To put it simply: being there for them when they need you & not hover when they make their own life choices. Supporting them, loving them and cherishing them. Have open communication and never take one phonecall, one email or one visit for granted. Miss them when you're not near and relish the quality time you spend with them.
Things with my mother and I got much easier when she accepted I was an adult in my own right and that her uninvited criticism, commentary on my decisions were unwanted.
It was all coming from a place of love and concern, but all I heard was negativity.
We live 30 minutes away from each other and we're really close now. We see each other frequently and no I happily hear her advice and thoughts in the same way I might from any friend.
I had a really tough year last year for a variety of reasons and I didn't want to talk to my mom much because I felt like a failure and I needed to prove to myself that I could handle my life - that I could figure this out on my own. (i'm pretty independent and proud...maybe a little too much at times). We have always had a pretty good relationship but I'm trying so hard to be "an adult" and "capable of making my own decisions" at 27, such as I should be. I pushed her away and I didn't want her help or her advice. The most important thing she said to me all year was that she was proud of me and that she was impressed by how I was handling such challenges. That meant so much to me. Then I felt safe to share with her and not be judged. Her advise was helpful but more than the advice, her encouragement and the knoweldge that she believes in me whole heartedly and "has my back" helped me to feel close to her. At least for me, as I have gotten older, knowing that my mom is proud of me and respects my abilities has kept our relationship strong over various ups and downs. I know she sees me as an adult and not someone she needs to direct all the time. I also like it when she lets me help her with things too.
I have a great relationship with my mom. We live by a few simple rules.
We're friends, but she's still my mother. She will always side with me against the entire world. So that devil's advocate tough love thing you want from friends sometimes, yeah, you won't get that.
I don't tell her about fights with my DH. I'll forgive him if he does something or says something hurtful. My mom never will, and will remember it all, so I prefer she not know about our agruments.
I always show my mother the respect she deserves as my mom. This means I put up with a little more crabby-apple behavior or criticism than I would from a friend. She's my mother, and no matter how friendly we are, that role is hers alone.