Mother - Daughter Relationships

I heard an interesting report on NPR this morning while driving to work. The subject was mother / daughter relationships. The main question of the report was: is it necessary for daughters to become estranged from their mothers during adolescence in order to develop a strong sense of individual self as an adult? The answer was "no" and the report went on to describe ways to build strong relationships with daughters in a way that enhances personal growth while maintaining intimacy.

It's a good report and worth reading / listening to, and I agree with pretty much everything in it. I did find it interesting though that there seems to be nothing in it which wouldn't equally apply to fathers and sons (or mothers and sons, or fathers and daughters for that matter). I'm not sure why the report wouldn't just say "parent" and "child" or "teenager" or something. There was nothing in it which suggested gender specificity.

It is also interesting that the report never mentions another parent other than the mother. Moms are only advised to turn to other moms for support in raising daughters. It is as if they assume that dads are absent from child rearing and not even worth mentioning. For all its claims of being progressive it seems like NPR is still living in the 1950's when only maternal relationships are assumed to be of value for children.

I liked it nonetheless, though. I think it is often the case that we assume that such estrangement is inevitable and actually good when it is neither. I went through that when I was a teen. Looking back, I wish I could change it. At the time I was so terribly hungry for a mentor to help me answer some of the frustrating questions I had about life, but I resented my parents like pretty much everyone else I knew. The only people I trusted were people as clueless and inexperienced as myself. Both my parents and I were unable to bridge that gap until I had grown older and especially since I had my own children.