Mothers/Daughters: Complex Relationships, Fierce Quarrels, but Deep Love
- Christa Lorraine Evans
- May 1, 2024
- 8 min read
Mother's Day is quickly approaching, and with that comes buying the perfect gift for your mom, mother-in-law, and wife, while also thinking and cherishing the memories of your mother. I know I know, more gift giving, BUT I found my links and reviews last time helped many people out with gifts so I figured I would give it another try with a little something extra! Mother's Day is beautiful because mothers worldwide do SO much and sacrifice for their children and husbands.
This wouldn't be a Mother's Day blog if I didn't give kudos to my very own momma! I, for one, am immensely grateful for my momma. She is seriously the best. My mom and I fight fiercely, but I can confidently say that we love each other deeply. Mother's Day is definitely for the mommas out there, but it is also for the kids... to remember and genuinely appreciate their moms. No matter your relationship with your mother, she brought you into this world, which is something to be grateful for! My mom and I have had somewhat of a confusing and difficult relationship in the past. Growing up, we constantly fought. We never saw eye-to-eye on pretty much anything. And our relationship struggled and felt like it was not recoverable for a hot minute. While in those awful teenage years between 14-16, I really struggled to enjoy my mom because I felt that we were too different.
(Also, isn't my mom GORGEOUS?!?!?!?!?!)
She was wayyyy too emotional for me, and I joked wayyy too much about everything. AKA she was emotional and I was an emotion stuffer. I also was just going through a really hard time loving myself and think Satan used that to his advantage in my relationship with my mom. I held deep-seated grudges against her for my childhood hurt, and couldn't seem to let it go. Although I didn't know I was holding onto childhood hurt, I slowly came to that realization in college. And it's CRAZY because I only truly forgave my mother for everything after I released control to Jesus. It's like He is sovereign or something??? I had a revelation while studying for a Bible study I was teaching that my mom didn't have to know how she hurt me for me to forgive her. I had gone about my WHOLE life thinking that she needed to know AND understand how she hurt me and how her words affected me. But God. God covered me with peace and I knew right then that HE understood my hurt and pain. And that only HE could make me feel heard and dissolve this grudge. My mom might have hurt me in various ways, but she is a sinner! I mean, wow, how good is God to keep my relationship with her intact, and how good was God to give me freedom in forgiveness!
We started to develop a healthy and new relationship only in the last few years. And almost everyone I talked to in high school or college talked to me about having a complicated relationship with their mom, and I just found it so fascinating. It is especially interesting because a lot of people I would come in contact with could have complicated relationships with their dads as well, but something was different about the mom. It was deeper with a mother-daughter relationship, the hurt was more prevalent, the emotions were more heightened, and the sense of desire to have a better relationship was more fervent. Why is this? As many of you know, I majored in psychology in college, and that certainly makes me no expert but I did do lots of research and reading on this very topic in college.
In college, I was especially interested in teenagers' interactions and relationships with other people and childhood development. Who we are and who we became is shaped, of course, by the Lord first as He knows the plan and direction for our life. However, the Lord also places people, things, and circumstances in our lives to shape us and mold us into who we will become. A huge portion of this is our mothers, how they raise us, how they interact with us, and how they model life for us. I know for me, my mother shaped a lot of who I am whether intentionally or not, and I'm sure many of you can say the same thing. My mom was an alcoholic growing up, therefore I choose not to partake in drunkenness and it makes me sad to see people drunk because I associate negative feelings with that. My mom has been sober for 9 years (praise God!), but does that take away my negative feelings towards drunkenness and red wine specifically??? Absolutely not. A positive emotion I associate with my mom is her smell. Seriously, growing up I adored giving my mom hugs because she smelled like flowers. She smelled like safety. She smelled like home. TO THIS DAY, I love hugging my mom and smelling my flowers, security, and home. My mom, in the moment, did not know how her interactions with me would shape me. I bet she would have never thought that I was going to be the one to start a blog about my cooking and cleaning LOL but it is something she instilled in me and taught me.
Growing up, I felt so unwanted, and I really blame that on not pursuing a relationship with the Lord. Satan spoke so many lies to me that I believed for YEARS. But there were also truths that I had not processed, and honestly, am still processing. This is very true of mother-daughter relationships as the daughter becomes an adult and the mother reaches middle age. Naturally, I was doing some research on this topic last year in college and decided to revisit it while writing this. In a study done by Bojczyk et al. (2011), they researched deeper into adult relationships of mothers and daughters as it relates to generational emphasis, connectedness, and how they both reconstruct their past relationships. It is not a super long read/study, so if you have the time, definitely give it a read! But if you simply enjoy the main facts, stick around for the key points, discussion, and conclusion. This study was interesting because it showed that mothers and daughters reevaluate their past relationships as new things come to light and as their life span changes. This helps explain the very difficult relationships mothers and daughters have. The mother might have responded a certain way to her daughter, and the young daughter might have been fine with that response when she was little. As she gets older, however, she begins to revisit her interactions with her mom and actually begins associating negative feelings with her mom's response to her as a kid. I find this so intriguing (and true for myself) because as we grow in our life experiences, we also grow in our analysis of who we are and how we were shaped. Bojczyk et al. describe this in their conclusion saying, "...childhood affects adulthood primarily through the prism of adult reconstructions and integrations of the past" (2011, 473). Also in the discussion it states, "...always conditioned or shaped by the individual’s current interpretation of those earlier experiences" (Bojezyk et al. 2011, 472). It is crazy that a lot of our childhood can be shaped by our adult interpretations of childhood experiences. I know for me, I tend to dramatize the feelings that I associate with negative childhood experiences. It feels like the older I get, the deeper I feel, and the more negative emotions arise with certain childhood experiences.
The process of intergenerational history also plays a huge role as each mother-daughter relationship is partially defined by their previous relationship with their parents. If my mother felt deeply hurt by her mom in some way, then that will play a role in how my mom defines and reconfigures my relationship with her. This can, like all things, be good and bad. If a mother has a relationship with her mom that is full of hurt, pain, and annoyance, that WILL in some way be reflected in her relationship with her daughter. The researchers also found that emotional support, guidance, and influence continually play a role in a mother-daughter relationship, and if the daughter does not feel this, she will long for it. If the mother does not feel like she is expressing this, she will also long for it. At the root of it, a daughter desires the love, guidance, and influence of her mother, but that line is SO difficult to walk to not suffocate the daughter. Based on the study and other research, I can definitely grasp how complicated mother-daughter relationships are, and that is totally normal! Whew, doesn't that make you feel a little better mothers/daughters? Your relationship is not unfixable and it is not weird to have a complicated relationship! As I have gotten older, I have learned to appreciate my mother more. Through some of the hurt and pain of my childhood, I can also see a mother struggling with sin, struggling with her identity, and struggling with life in general. I want to end this little tidbit by just expressing how the complicatedness of these relationships is SO beautiful! God has woven these relationships to take work because well, it takes work to have a good relationship!
Ultimately, lots of research points to mothers and daughters longing for a good relationship with each other, but I think it speaks even more so. Your relationship and my relationship with our mothers is not fulfilling. Our mothers are not perfect, but they are also not the enemy! It shows that much more how we need and long for a relationship that hears us, sees us, and loves us endlessly. A relationship where there is only goodness, and I speak of our relationship with Jesus. How amazing is our God to give us mothers and fathers to love on us and show us just a tiny glimpse of Himself! No matter the past complications of my relationship with my mother, she continued to love me. She loved me through depression, self-hate, dramatic moments, talking back to her, saying things I don't mean, and through the terrible teenage years. I would say her love for me represents Jesus' love for me, and when we look at our relationships with our parents as glimpses of God's grace and love, our perspective changes, forgiveness pours out, and peace restores our hearts!
Now to the fun part! Gift-giving is something I deeply enjoy, I love people receiving gifts. It gives me great joy for them to feel loved and cared for because I took the time to look and pick out something I thought they would enjoy. On the flip side, gift giving is sometimes hard when you can't think of anything else, what do you do then???? Well, you read this blog and cross your fingers that there is something on this list your momma/wife enjoys!
The Self-Care Momma
Bubble Bath Pack
Self-Care Kit
Cute Clips
Boho Headbands
Castor Hair Oil
The Comfy Momma
Cute PJ Set
Popcorn Pack
Christian Floral Tumbler
Fruity Tea
Slippers
The Outdoor Momma
Gardening Gloves
Cute Hat for Ponytails
Bird Feeder
Floppy Hat
Thanks for learning about mother-daughter relationships and shopping with me! Have a wonderful Mother's Day!
Citation
Bojczyk, Kathryn E., et al. “Mothers’ and Their Adult Daughters’ Perceptions of Their Relationship.” Journal of Family Issues, vol. 32, no. 4, 2011, pp. 452–481, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x10384073.
