Why daughters resent their mothers

My relationship with my mother had shaped who I was, and when my daughter was born 30 years ago, I knew I had to change the harmful themes that were being passed down the generations. What began as a personal quest became my professional mission.

Mothers and daughters frequently tell me that they feel ashamed about their relationship difficulties. This societal expectation makes mothers and daughters blame themselves for causing their relationship difficulties. The truth is, if my years of experience providing therapy are any indication, many women currently experience mother-daughter relationship conflict. Based on the inquiries I receive from mothers and adult daughters from different countries, I believe that a larger, societywide dynamic is contributing to their relationship conflict.

Another common reason mothers and daughters give to explain why they are not getting along is their differing or similar personality traits.

I have never found hormones or personality traits to be the core reasons for mother-daughter relationship conflict, however. Rather, I have concluded that society sets mothers and daughters up for conflict. In the first insight, I show that the mother-daughter relationship is not difficult to understand once we realize that mothers and daughters do not relate in a cultural vacuum.

In recognizing that mothers and daughters relate within a sociocultural and multigenerational environment, the dynamics between them become easier to grasp. We see how life events, restrictive gender roles, unrealized career goals, and the expectation that women should sacrifice their needs in their caregiving role all shape how mothers and daughters view themselves and each other and how they communicate.

To illustrate this dynamic, I share the story of my work with Sandeep, a young college student from England name and identifying details have been changed.

To illustrate, I share my work with Miriam, a doctor from Sweden who comes from a feminist family name and identifying details have been changed. Both Miriam and Sandeep come from families in which women have not learned how to ask for what they need. As is the case with any couple, mothers and daughters rarely fight over what they say they are arguing over. Sandeep and her mother were no exception to this rule. Sandeep was a young college student who lived at home.

Her parents immigrated to England from India before Sandeep was born. Sandeep came to see me because she was feeling depressed about how critical her mother was. She was struggling to juggle her college work with the housework her mother and family expected her to do. Sandeep had consulted a counselor before me who had suggested that her mother might be suffering from a personality disorder. Instead, Sandeep needed to understand the multigenerational sociocultural environment in which she and her mother lived.

When I start working with new clients, I map their mother-daughter history. This is the primary exercise in the mother-daughter attachment model. It is an adaptation of the genogram exercise that family therapists use. I map the experiences the three women have had in their lives, including the gender roles that have defined their lives and limited their choices and power.

I also map how the men in the family treat their wives and daughters. Mother-daughter history maps provide an in-depth analysis of the multigenerational sociocultural environment in which the women in the family live and what is happening within that environment to cause mothers and daughters to argue, misunderstand each other, and disconnect emotionally.

Detailed instructions on using this exercise with clients are available in my book The Mother-Daughter Puzzle. She said the males in the family were encouraged to go to college and build their careers, while the females were expected to stay at home to help their mothers. Sandeep represented the first woman in her generational family to finish school and go to college.

Families that subscribe to the culture of female service expect mothers and daughters to be selfless, sacrificial, self-neglecting caregivers. This belief system does not recognize women as people with needs of their own. They believe that they can fix the relationship, if they only tried hard enough. This is why they keep going back to the people who hurt them, even though it might have been better to walk away.

To these daughters, love is conditional. They would always try to bargain and appeal to someone they love, just to feel loved. Do you know anyone who suffers these hardships? What other difficulties do you think unloved daughters can have as adults?

They could lack the ability to trust. They could lack self-confidence. They could have difficulties with boundaries. They could feel dominated by a fear of failure. The could have difficulties seeing themselves for who they really are.

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The guilt and blame that society places on the shoulders of children who are estranged from their parents can often feel like motivation enough to suffer in silence. So if you think you might have a toxic relationship with your mother, then read on for six of the most common signs. It can be hard to have compassion for yourself when your mother took care of your physical needs but ignored your emotional ones. A study published by the American Psychological Association found that children who suffered from emotional abuse dealt with the same rates of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and suicidal impulses as children who had experienced physical and sexual abuse.

Emotional neglect from mothers can have lasting consequences. As Peg Streep, author of Mean Mothers , put it in Psychology Today : " Daughters raised by dismissive mothers doubt the validity of their own emotional needs. They feel unworthy of attention and experience deep, gut-wrenching self-doubt, all the while feeling intense longing for love and validation.

As therapist Daniel S. Lobel, Ph. They feel entitled to demand from their children unlimited support and service.