What ruins a mother daughter relationship?
A mother daughter bond is created from the moment the little girl is born, and becomes stronger by time and experience. It’s the big goal every mother dreams of, the one dream a mother wants to achieve so much that she tries her very best to do everything for her daughter.
But sometimes things go wrong along the way and we don’t know what exactly happened for it to be this way. Like your daughter starts talking back at you, she raises her voice, she disrespects you, doesn’t do what you tell her…etc.
It takes years to build a strong relationship between a mother and her daughter, to build trust and mutual respect between them until the mother becomes her daughter’s friend and earns her trust enough to share secrets even the girl’s friends don’t know.
But what happens when you feel that there’s no relationship, there’s a gap between you, she doesn’t actually want to talk or tell you about what’s going on in her life? She always tries to keep you far from knowing her feelings, dreams and aspirations.
When this happens there might be reasons that lead to this place. And it probably didn’t happen overnight, it’s been happening for a while and maybe years.
So what could be the reasons that can ruin or negatively affect the relationship between a mother and her daughter? Here are some:
1. Lack of communication: When you can’t find a way to talk to each other or you can’t get along. Every time she comes to you with a problem you start fighting and you shout at her for what she said or what she did.
2. Achieving dreams: When the mother wants to achieve all her dreams through her daughter. For example, if the mom wanted to be a ballerina when she was a child, she pushes her daughter to do ballet. Or if she always dreamt about being a doctor, she keeps telling her daughter how she wants her to go to medicine school. And when the daughter follows her mother’s dreams and let go of her own self and dreams, that could lead to feelings of resentment towards her mother in the future or feeling lost and unhappy with how her life turned out.
3. Perfect mom: When the mother always seeks perfection. When she wants to be a perfect mother and to have the perfect daughter. She doesn’t want to make any mistakes and the same goes for her daughter. This puts huge stress on both the mother and daughter and by time ruins their relationship. Because the mother puts too much stress on her daughter and herself without realizing it.
4. Being too strict or too easy: We should be firm but kind. When the mother is too harsh and uses aggression to solve her daughter’s problems or when the mother is too passive and lets her daughter do whatever she wants and never comments or give advice, both are a huge problem. Because the harsh mother gives her daughter a hard time and smothers her by time. And the passive mother doesn’t support her daughter at all or supports her in anything because she doesn’t want her daughter to be upset from her. So in both cases the daughters rebel and have their own way. They stop listening to their mothers and stop caring about what they think.
5. Put myself in her shoes: If the mother doesn’t put herself in her daughter’s shoes, if she thinks all her daughter’s issues and problems are too silly and not a big deal, this leads to a big gap between them over time. The daughter will stop going to her mother for advice.
6. Separate person: Not treating her daughter as a separate person is also a big mistake. Especially if she’s a teenager. I should give her space and respect her and her opinions. Not force my opinions on her.
7. Being strong or passive: Some mothers raise their daughters on the concept of “ you have to be strong, and take your right no matter what, fight and shout when anyone bothers you!!!”.
And other moms tell their daughters to be quiet, never comment or say their opinions about anything, and that this is how to be polite and respectful. Both are wrong. They have to raise them on being independent, having a voice of their own, using their words politely to express their opinions and take actions for themselves.
8. Shouting or spanking: A lot of mothers unfortunately think the right way to raise children is by shouting or spanking them. This way they will behave and do what is asked of them. This is not true. This will create a monster in the future. You daughter will imitate you and respond to you with the same attitude you use with her. And she will do it with other people too.
9. Privacy: We should teach kids about privacy and how we should respect each other’s privacy very well. Like knocking on the door before we enter a room, not looking in people’s phones without their permission, because a lot of moms do that with their daughters as part of disciplining them but that won’t work.
10. Criticize and making fun: Never criticize your daughter or make fun of the way she looks or acts in front of anyone. Even her siblings, her father, her grandmother, anyone. That destroys her self esteem and self image.
11. Emotional Abuse: Don’t tell her “If you finished this task I will love you more”, or “ you’ll sleep over at your grandparents and leave me alone?” Just to make her feel bad or guilty that she’s not pleasing you. That way you’re raising a people pleaser who has no personality and feels guilty about everything.
12. Friendships: When your daughter comes to you and tells you a story about one of her friends or something not really nice about one of her friends, try not to shout or get upset and criticize immediately. This will drive her away and she will stop telling you about them. And she can be friends with them behind your back. Don’t tell her “I don’t want you to be friends with this girl ever again, understand?” Trust me she will, and she’ll ignore you. Or she might stop talking to her but she will also stop telling you anything else about any of her friends.
So these are some of the major things that can ruin the relationship between a mom and her daughter. Next article will be about how to build a great relationship from the start and how to do it.