A Perfect Mother is Not an Ideal Mother At All
By Linda Perlman Gordon and Susan Morris Shaffer
www.parentingroadmaps.com
A
daughter often feels her mother as such a powerful presence in her life
that it can be difficult for her to see her as an ordinary person with
failings, motives and ambitions. Developing a healthy adult relationship
requires that both mothers and daughters understand and accept each
other as separate individuals with flaws and imperfections.
With few exceptions (mental illness, narcissism, and other personality
disorders), certain qualities can help mothers and daughters to overcome
barriers. Nobody is perfect. If a mother is empathic, responsive, and
respects boundaries, close relationships are always possible. Children
are very resilient and can accept imperfections when their mothers
exhibit the above qualities. Parents can also accept flaws if children
demonstrate empathy.
Empathy is the foundation for mature relationships; it promotes
connection by inviting intimacy. We define empathy as an awareness of
the impact of one’s behavior on others and a sense of responsibility for
this. Empathy is also associated with sympathy, warmth, and compassion.
These qualities can mitigate the challenges that mothers and daughters
inevitably face.
For the most part, separation, individuation, and connection remain the
salient themes for mothers and daughters. The flashpoints we see
occurring between mothers and daughters include miscommunication,
entitlement, self-absorption, not really knowing one another, lack of
appreciation, lack of emotional support, distance and unavailability,
control, judgment, lack of boundaries, shaming, and idealization of
childhood. These behaviors are the genesis of issues that can’t be swept
under the rug. Conflict is inevitable and can be harmful to the
development of an adult relationship if it isn’t resolved in a mutually
respectful and appropriate way.
By supporting maturity, rather than enabling or rescuing our daughters,
when they don’t really need rescuing, mothers and daughters can resolve
most conflict. If mothers continue to do things for their daughters that
they should be doing themselves, and fail to hold them accountable for
their own behavior, collaborative problem solving doesn’t work.
Trying to live up to impossible standards created by a society that
expects mothers to be perfect doesn’t work either.
We have replaced the concept of an idealized perfect mother with
something more realistic. We call this the Perfectly Imperfect Mother.
This allows daughters to relate to their mothers as human beings. The
Perfectly Imperfect Mother meets almost all of her daughter’s needs when
she is a baby, and as she grows, slowly frustrates some of her
daughter’s needs to give her the ability to deal with failure.
The Perfectly Imperfect Mother gives her daughter the message that she
wants her daughter to be moral and responsible, to have the strength to
make her own choices and appreciate her own abilities and talents. The
Perfectly Imperfect Mother doesn’t see her daughter’s struggles or
frustrations as proof that she isn’t a good mother. Instead, she sees
these behaviors as appropriate individuation. She understands that her
daughter may make very different choices in life from the ones she made
and doesn’t interpret this as a rejection or as a failure of her
mothering.
A Perfectly Imperfect Mother respects boundaries and demonstrates
empathy toward her daughter, enabling a close relationship. A daughter
wants to chart her own life course and many of today’s mothers struggle
with how to help rather than hinder them. Both yearn to stay connected.
The most ideal relationship involves mothers and daughters looking after
one another, while maintaining their individuality and respectful
interdependence. By respectful interdependence, we mean that both mother
and daughter are highly involved in each other’s lives, yet they respect
and value each other’s independence. The goal is for both mothers and
daughters to have a relationship that gives them both a great source of
strength and joy.
How to Accept Being a Perfectly Imperfect Mother:
- Know yourself first and forgive your imperfections.
- Support more collaboration and mutuality and less hierarchy.
- Practice active listening without make judgments.
- Allow your daughter to make her own decisions and learn to live with the consequences.
- Try not to view your daughter’s struggles or frustrations as proof that you aren’t a good enough mother.
- Give your daughter the message that you want and expect her to be a responsible person – and that she has the strength to make her own choices and to appreciate her own abilities and talents.
- Step back and try to maintain a positive, objective distance.
- Tell the truth.
About
the Authors:
Linda Perlman Gordon, MSW, and Susan Morris Shaffer, MA, are the authors
of
Too Close for Comfort?: Questioning the Intimacy of Today's New Mother-Daughter Relationship
