Contents
Why mom can’t be friends with her daughter: 4 main reasons
It would seem, well, what’s wrong with being a friend to your own child. But psychologists say that everything is bad in such an idea.
How to behave if you are a girl’s mother? Is it possible to be friends with your child or is it more correct to keep your distance? We publish the opinion of a psychologist.
“Probably, many of us, when our mother scolded us in childhood, pouted our lips and thought: ‘When I grow up, I will be my daughter’s girlfriend, not a mother who brings up all the time.’ Time passes, you grow up, give birth to a daughter and are already seriously considering whether to be a friend for your daughter or is it better to remain in the role of a mother. “
It seems that the goals are good – to be on an equal footing with my daughter. But good intentions paved the way to the destruction of the worldview and psyche of the child. Kristina Gribova named four main disadvantages of family “equality”.
Incorrectly built family system
To have weight in the eyes of your daughter and to be an authority for her, you need to observe the family hierarchy. Mom is older, which means that she brings up, makes comments, asks for the fulfillment of everyday duties. The girl develops respect for her mother and her authority.
Friendship does not involve building a hierarchy; it is about equality. Situations that could have been resolved with one word from the mother are protracted and very complicated.
You have to beg, persuade, negotiate where there is no need at all.
“Sow a habit, reap character, sow character, reap destiny.” In childhood, a certain exactingness is a measure of upbringing and a correct foundation for the future, and not a systematic suppression of the baby. As you grow up, you need to build trusting relationships with your child and communicate not from a position of domination, but as an equal to yourself. But at the same time, the child should respect you and know that the decisive word is still with the elder, ”explains Kristina Gribova.
Lack of true maternal care
Mom takes care of and cares. And if mother and daughter suddenly find themselves on an equal footing, then the girl is deprived of true custody. Mother-girlfriends often devote their daughter to non-childish issues, discussing their personal life with the child, even if from the past. It turns out that the child grows up artificially, and such relationships have nothing to do with care and trust.
You need to allow the child to enjoy his age, and not try to share with him his adult problems and experiences.
Rivalry
Compliance with intrafamily subordination excludes rivalry and competition, which will necessarily appear in relations on an equal footing. The process of adaptation in society goes on as usual, when girlfriends compare themselves to each other, but not in the confrontation between mother and daughter – this is unnatural.
It happens that mothers-friends do not want to lag behind their young daughter and do their best to look younger: they change their wardrobe, learn fashionable slang, and go to a beautician.
The latter is the only thing really worth doing. All other ways to hide their age make mom a laughing stock in the eyes of her teenage daughter and her friends. The child will sooner or later begin to be ashamed of his own mother. But I would like to be proud of her.
There is also a downside: sometimes mothers try to accelerate the maturation of their daughter, so that the girl becomes a match for her adult “friend”.
The desire for a daughter to be always there
Any normal person closer to 18–20 years old, or even earlier, is covered by the desire for independence. Children want to live separately, and that’s okay. But not in a situation with a mom-friend. The desire to be friends with a daughter often hides the desire to keep her, not to let her out from under the parental wing, which will inevitably complicate her separation from her mother.
In adolescence, young people often hide their personal lives, do not tell the details of their leisure time and do not share things that are important to them – this is a natural separation of the personal “I” from the family. This is in favor of personal growth, development and individual knowledge. Love, protect, control, of course, is necessary, but in moderation. First of all, a teenager needs to be taught the correct values in life, making independent decisions and not hindering him from gaining personal experience.