Mother-daughter relationships can be complex, but also filled with compassion and love. Mothers and daughters often seem farther away from each other than they really are. Usually when a girl goes through adolescence, the relationship between her and her mother begin to change in many different ways, but can grow at the same time. Even though the wars between a mother and daughter can ravage a relationship, they can easily be recognized earlier enough to keep a relationship from severing the ties that a mother and daughter have with one another.

Adolescence... a time of seemingly more freedom, junior high to high school, football games, dances, parties, going out for pizza, dating, driving, a later curfew, going to the mall, and talking on the phone almos

Mother-daughter relationships are among the most complicated relationships ever experienced. They often compromise many conflicting feelings such as love, anger, worry, resentment, envy, and need. When daughters become young adults the focus of the mother-daughter relationship is the daughter’s efforts to become an adult. While this is rewarding for the mother, it is also a significant expenditure of time and energy that focuses on one person-the daughter. #As daughters move into middle age and mothers grow older, their goals are more in sync. Mothers often reflect on their relationships with their own mothers and hope for growing intimacy with their own daughters. Mothers identify and resolve the tensions that can arise when their expectations for their daughters with the reality of how she’s living her life.

xpectations about mothers. They are held responsible for their children’s happiness. Many people have troubles growing up enough to see their mothers as people. As Mary Pipher writes in her book, Reviving Ophelia, of studies about adolescent girls, distant mothers are scorned, but mothers who are to close are accused of smothering and overprotecting. Each chapter of Reviving Ophelia opens with a different scenario and in her book, Pipher gives equal voices to both mothers and daughters. Maybe the first step of a daughter towards maintaining a good relationship with her mother, is for her to see her mother as an individual. Growing up requires adolescent girls to reject the person with whom they are most closely identified. Daughters are socialized to have a tremendous fear of becoming like their mothers, but maybe if they tried enough to really look at and understand their mothers, this would no longer be a fear to them. I personally think that many girls do not realize they may have this fear themselves. I know I did not realize I held it within myself, but then I also realized there was a lot more to my mother that I cared to see. Once I saw past my close-mindedness, I understood that there was nothing wrong with growing up and acting a little like my mom. In fact, there were some qualities my mother held that I wanted to imitate when I was a mother myself. #During the time of adolescence, a girl want more freedom in becoming her own person, and mothers often mistake growth toward independence as rebelliousness. After all, a teen may question all that her mother stands for. Sometimes a mother may offer her advice to her child while looking out for her best interest, but a girl mistakes it as her mother trying to run her life and control her. Erin comments, #“Sometimes when I would try to make a decision that was hard for me, and I know I could be capable of making a bad choice or a mistake, I did not want to hear my mom’s advice. It was like I knew she was probably right, but in spite of her, I would rather find out the hard way. I would rather find out on my own.” I also look back on decisions I have had to make in my life and the advice that I did not take from my mother and I wish I would have taken it, because then life would have been a little bit easier, but I do know that life is not perfect and that it is okay to find things out the hard way. For many girls though, they should know, learn and understand that if they decide to take their mother’s advice on certain things, it is okay and they are not giving into their mothers. Mothers are just trying to help their daughte

Some topics in this essay:
, Jason Tretheway, Reviving Ophelia, mothers daughters, Mary Pipher, mother daughter, adolescent girls, mother-daughter relationships, mother-daughter relationship, girls mothers, realized mother, understand mothers, themselves mother-daughter, teen girls,