When Mothering Is Done

Mother and Daughter friendship after the fraught teenage years

One of the most complex relationships in the world is that of Mother and Daughter. The cooing baby girl that lays grinning in your arms, chubby little hands reaching out for you. Squeals of delight and baby giggles.

Let me tell you something. About thirteen or fourteen years later that little baby, now on the cusp of womanhood, will break your heart. She’ll wring it out, twist it up and then wring it out some more. And for good measure, she’ll stamp on it.

But still, you love her.

Welcome to the teenage years. The years of hormonal upheaval, the sulks, the screaming, arguments over the silliest things. Slammed doors, getting drunk, bad influences. Slipping out the back door unseen and unheard at night when she’s not supposed to. The fact she looks at you and the rest of the family like some alien entity and cuts herself off, only interested in what her friends have to say. And in some cases, those “friends” are the sort of people you would scurry across the road to avoid or at the very least dive behind the chiller cabinet at the store to divert away from.

You look at other Mothers of teenage girls. Their girls are perfect, well behaved, no trouble at all, a pleasure to be with. An utter delight.

Or are they? Mothers generally don’t like to be seen as failing. “Darling Katie” who is doing wonderfully at school, is in the choir and can recite “The Merchant Of Venice” inside out may well be a raging cow behind closed doors and causing utter carnage within the family home. But Mother will never admit it. Mother would rather amputate her own leg than admit her daughter is troublesome. Because in her mind a troublesome daughter reflects on her mothering abilities.

Despite the wars and rows in the family home, we must present a picture that all is just fine and dandy and that’s what we want the world outside to see. Such is the power of love from the Mother to the Daughter that despite all the angst, she remembers the halcyon years before hormones kicked in. The cooing baby, the first years at school, a little figure running up to you with arms outstretched. The willingness to hold your hand and talk with you.

Mumsnet abounds with tortuous posts “I hate my teenage daughter”, worse still, “I can cope no longer”. These Mothers are not failures. They are brave for speaking out, they are brave in admitting there is a problem. A problem they are desperately trying to claw their way out of. Because in most cases they love their daughters and are trying to navigate their way through a dark hormonal strewn path with no lights to help them along and plenty of rocks in the way for them to trip upon.

Through these teenage years, the Daughter grows further away. The stranger in the nest but nevertheless connected forever to Mother as she came forth from her womb. A living result of a Mother’s passion for her sire.

Then something happens. It’s called adulthood. Eventually, hormones settle down. Your Daughter goes out into the big wide world either through College or employment. A new way of living is now hers, new people, new scenes. As her Mother, standing on the sidelines you hope for the best and pray things to turn out well. Your day to day mothering is now done and she is now “a responsible adult”. But whatever may come you are still HER Mother.

At this point, she is free, separate from you, and out in the world of others. She is excited about her first job and wants to talk about her day. What’s gone down and who has said what to whom.

You bump into each other in the kitchen. No longer ships that pass in the night. She abundantly tells you about her day and in your mind, a long lost picture of an exuberant eight-year-old girl appears. Your girl and she’s talking to you and with you.

Everything changes and yet everything stays the same. Mother and Daughter remain but now added is friendship. The bond of blood and the love of a Mother that held steadfastly got them there in the end.