When daughters grow up

The awakening of sexuality takes more than one year, and for a girl this period is not easy: the first menstruation, the first love, experiences and disappointments. But her mother is no less emotional.

The joy that her daughter is becoming attractive, the anxiety that she does not make mistakes, the fear of losing intimacy in a relationship with her child … In addition, her burgeoning youth reminds her of her own age.

It’s great if, during this period, mother and daughter “perceive their relationship as a happy collaboration in which both of them are a source of joy for each other,” write psychoanalysts Carolyn Elyacheff and Natalie Einisch, authors of the book “Mothers and Daughters. 3rd extra? This implies mutual trust in the most intimate matters, advice and mutual support in both serious and trifling things.

Alas, the reality is not always so rosy. In the relationship between mother and daughter, there is superiority or subordination, jealousy or injustice, inferiority or simply a complete lack of contact. And this is fraught with serious problems for both the daughter and the mother. And especially in what we mean by personal life.

Branch law

“Sensuality, charm, attractiveness — it is the mother that serves as a prototype of the qualities that will help a young girl find love in life,” recalls Jungian analyst Anna Kazakova.

In search of a feminine identity, every girl goes through a period when she identifies with her mother. Then follows an equally important stage of differentiation: she needs not to build herself in the image and likeness of her mother, but to create her own image.

Only by moving away, you can discover the differences: what kind of woman am I?

“All mothers, without exception, are worried: growing up, the daughter is moving away more and more, and in the end both must abandon the relationship that connected them,” explain Caroline Eljacheff and Natalie Einisch. Breaking up is easier for women who have been able to realize their sexuality, know and appreciate themselves and know how to enjoy life.

It is especially difficult for those for whom the daughter is the only joy, «the light in the window.» For example, a single woman or one whose relationship with her husband has lost sensuality. The one who, first of all, feels like a mother, and not a woman, because she failed to build a relationship with her partner. Letting go of a daughter is often beyond her strength.

“If a distance has not been established between them, the mother seems to “appropriate” her daughter’s life, wants to live for her and does not allow her to make decisions,” explains Anna Kazakova. — They form a pair, excluding the presence of a third. If a daughter has a partner, the mother does everything to expel him in any way. In fact, the daughter gets a ban on the manifestation of her own feelings and on sexuality.

Elyacheff and Einish see two most likely scenarios. Either the daughter will look for in a man … a mother — and choose those with whom she will reproduce the relationship of merging, mutual dependence, or, conversely, in search of an «anti-mother» she will pretend to be in touch with inaccessible men: married, travelers living on the other side of the world , with casual or rigidly defending their independence lovers.

Many mothers do their best to arrange the personal life of their daughter. Some actively engage in matchmaking, selecting the “right” grooms, others not only do not prohibit sexual relations, but even try to organize them, ask for all the details, actively give advice in order to keep everything under control.

Turned inside out, this is the same situation of fusion, when the mother perceives her daughter as part of herself, and not as a separate, different person.

“I raised my daughter alone, my husband left when she was three months old,” says 45-year-old Veronika. “Now Masha is thirteen, she has had boys, and I intend to do everything possible so that she does not repeat my mistake, does not choose a husband like her father.”

Daughters react differently to active maternal intervention: they obediently obey, but more often they rebel and conflict.

“But even if a girl, from whom her mother demands puritanical behavior, constantly changes partners as a sign of protest, this does not indicate the development of her sensuality,” emphasizes Anna Kazakova. — She acts in spite of, and does not do what she wants. This means that the dependence remains, only in a paradoxical form.

What we are saying may go against the idea of ​​great motherly love. As soon as the image of a mother who selflessly dedicated her life to children is not sung!

But what does such self-sacrifice mean for the daughter? How can she know what love for a man is if her mother did not show her this by the example of her relationship with her father or another partner? — ask a reasonable question Caroline Elyacheff and Natalie Einish. It is wonderful when a woman becomes a mother, but it is a disaster when the hypostasis of the Mother in her suppresses the Beloved.

Two rivals?

But let’s not forget about another female incarnation — Wives, companions of her husband. She is only one of many, but if she turns out to be stronger than other roles, the husband or partner becomes the center of a woman’s existence. And surrounding women are perceived as a potential threat. Jealousy can cause even a prettier daughter, to whom the father gives his tenderness every day.

Mother and daughter may not realize that they have become rivals, but the struggle between them is going on in earnest.

“Mikhail is my third husband,” Alla, 43, says. — When we got married, Asya was two years old, and he became her real father. Now she is already becoming a bright girl, but in the morning, as before, she can walk around the apartment in a nightgown, not embarrassed by the presence of her husband. And he clearly loves her. I do not admit that he has any impermissible thoughts, he is not that person! But I still don’t feel comfortable…”

“Relations are changing,” Anna Kazakova comments. — The daughter is alienated, symbolically passes into the category of stepdaughter. Or, on the contrary, she feels her omnipotence: she defeated her mother!

There is a possibility that even then she will choose a “not her” man — a partner older than herself, as if “marrying her father.” Be that as it may, she will not have a mother to lean on, who understands, accepts and warms.

But the absence of a partner in a mother’s life does not guarantee that she will not enter into rivalry with her daughter. The mother may suggest that the daughter is unattractive and devalue the awakening femininity so that she does not become the winner of an unannounced competition.

This plot is symbolic in the fairy tale about Snow White, recalls Anna Kazakova. A beautiful daughter is growing up, and the queen, worried that she will take her place on the throne, tries to get rid of her. “Here the narcissistic problems of the mother manifest themselves, which she is not aware of, but which haunt her,” the analyst comments. “No one has the right to be better!”

Sometimes envy arises not even to the daughter, but to her youth. Plastic surgery, hours in the gym and desperately short skirts — all this is designed to prove: I am good, I attract men.

Personal immaturity may be hiding behind the desire to stop time, Anna Kazakova suggests. “Most women have their own special, unique sexuality. They know what pleasure is and know how to manage it. When this experience is not passed, not learned, the woman begins to play the girl. These mothers take their age very hard.”

Looking for answers

The merger or rivalry between mother and daughter is not always pronounced. Sometimes it is only indicated by a dotted line, but in any case it is painful. The only way out is to ask yourself the right questions and look for answers to them. Learn to show patience and flexibility, to discover new female wisdom in yourself.

“It is never too late to improve relations,” Anna Kazakova is sure. — And then the girl will begin to live her life, and the mother — hers. And maybe even discover a passionate woman in herself, which she had not suspected before. By the way, this often happens when the children have already grown up.