by guest blogger Laura Arens Fuerstein, Ph.D.

The mother-daughter relationship. Words used to describe it only offer a flavor of what the bond evokes in women – “intense”, “complex”, “enduring”, “unique”, “inexplicable”. At times mother and daughter dance an elegant tango with smooth motions, graceful synchrony, and fluid lines. At other moments they seem caught in enmeshed steps guided by erratic rhythms and discordant sounds.    
Because both members of the pair share gender, hormones, anatomy and cultural influence, and because the mother is usually the primary caregiver, the daughter’s separation process has a unique challenge – in contrast with the son, whose gender and anatomy offers him an innate difference from his mother. And when the mother has a strong need to repair herself, replay herself, or re-invent herself through her female offspring, the daughter’s individuality is harder to gain. Also, because a daughter has a natural yearning to return to the mother who cared for her as a little girl, it’s easy for her to be drawn back to that experience by her mother’s unconscious messages.

That process is more likely when the mother struggles with the loss of her little girl, or on some level competes with her blossoming daughter. She might say to a tween or teen, through words, or body language like an intense look, “I need you to be here at home tonight” – when the need is not realistic. Or, “Please get the groceries before you go out with your friends” – when the groceries could be purchased at another time. Or, “You shouldn’t wear that top that clings to you” – when the clinging is appropriate and flatters the daughter’s lovely figure.

If the mother has a distorted self-image – one that doesn’t come close to who she really is – it will provide fuel for her to pull her daughter back to little girlhood. In my book, My Mother, My Mirror, I refer to the distorted self-image as the carnival mirror self-image, like the one we see at the fun house. And because the mother’s influence on her daughter is so powerful, her own self-image – distorted or truer – will greatly color her daughter’s. The self-image is shaped by 3 key elements: how the mother views the daughter, how the daughter views the mother, how the daughter identifies with the mother. Some illustrations.

“How the mother views the daughter.”

The mother with a relatively true view of herself has a relatively true view of her daughter. But when the mother sees herself in the carnival mirror, she sees the daughter in it too. And sometimes, fantasies about the daughter based on the mother’s distorted self-image appear even before conception, as was the case for Liza. During childhood, her mother compared Liza to her older sister, Carla, who the mother idealized for her blue eyes and blond hair, in contrast with the mother and Liza, who had brown eyes and brown hair.

As an adult, Liza pictured a daughter with the same coloring as Carla. So when Liza gave birth to a girl, Stacey, who had Liza’s coloring, she viewed her as flawed, which caused her to be picky about her clothes as a baby and about her appearance at an older age. Stacey grew up with a carnival mirror self-image as unattractive, even though she actually was an attractive woman.

“The way the daughter views the mother.”

Let’s say Karen has a distorted self-image as needing to be perfect for her mother, Grace, to be loved. So as a mother herself, Karen shows her daughter, Elaine, a façade of superiority by bragging about her tennis abilities, and seeks perfection in Elaine that will reflect well on Karen. When Elaine attempts tennis as a little girl, she senses her mother’s tension during practice, compares herself negatively to her mother, and feels defeated early on, so that she prematurely gives up lessons. So Elaine has gained a distorted self-image as inadequate for tennis. If she viewed herself more accurately as skilled enough to play the game, she could learn it and enjoy it.

“The way the daughter identifies with her mother.”

Jill, who was always slim, sat around the table at meal time while growing up and heard her mother frequently talk about her excess pounds and need for a new diet. As an adult, Jill had a distorted self-image through identification with her mother as needing to watch her weight, and rigidly watched her calories unnecessarily.

Whether a tango or enmeshed dance, the mother-daughter bond creates an easy flow of the mother’s self-image over to her daughter. And if the mother views herself in a distorted way, chances are her daughter will view herself that way too. So the daughter’s sense of herself as separate from her mother – though she can still feel connected to her – is the key to her replacing the carnival mirror with a truer one.

Laura Arens Fuerstein, Ph.D. is an psychotherapist with more than thirty years of experience and author of My Mother, My Mirror: Recognizing and Making the Most of Inherited Self-Images.