“They are the best of conversations; they are the worst of conversations.” You don’t have to be a linguist to know why talking to mom can either be the best part of your day or the worst. Deborah Tannen explores why “A remark coming from your daughter or your mother is more healing or more hurtful than the same remark coming from someone else.” She carefully examines conversations for their hidden meanings in her book, You’re Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. The book’s first line mirrors Dickinson’s opening to A Tale of Two Cities and perfectly captures the contradictory nature of this special relationship.
How can mothers and daughters both loathe and love each other? Women in general utilize verbal communication to build rapport with one another. What, why and how words are said is much easier for individuals in close relationships to interpret. So mothers and daughters feel closer by talking, but they also are keener at deciphering underlying messages, including those less desirable to hear.
Have you ever wondered how you got into an argument over something seemingly meaningless? When we hear disagreements from the outside (as fathers often do), they seem humorous to our own unoffended ears. Our disputes are over an entirely different topic than the one we’re talking about. What we say has two meanings: the literal and the implied. We wield, hurl and shield against the metamessage, the hidden message.
So what are we really in disagreement about? In her study of adolescent daughters and their mothers, Barbara Penington commonly found tension between autonomy (independence) and connection (interdependence) in their mother-daughter relationships. These two contradictory desires are at the core of all intimate relationships, but Leslie Baxter, communication scholar, explains that relationships are full of opposing viewpoints that set the context and drive the conversation.
Both mothers and daughters continuously need separation as well as connection well into their later years. The mother-daughter bond can be comforting or restrictive. Too much tension can lead to conflict when one prefers more or less than the other. Tannen offers some suggestions to help keep mothers and their grown daughters in harmony.
Advice to Mothers:
Don’t give advice. As the old saying goes, “Mother knows best.” Yet, adult women often reject help or advice from mom. “What only a mother can give is reassurance that she is proud of her daughter for having attained this rite of passage to adulthood and that she trusts her to handle the responsibility that comes with it. From this point of view, it should be comforting for the mother to know that her approval continues to be important to her daughter-not only at age thirty-five but so long as they both shall live.”
In the words of another mother, “What they [her daughters] really wanted-even if they seemed to be asking for advice-was [my] stamp of approval on what they had done.”
Advice to Daughters:
Reframe criticism as caring. In You’re Wearing That?, one woman recounts showing her mother a new pair of socks with her outfit. The previous day she showed the pair of black socks and navy pair she’d just purchased. Mom’s remark? “Are you sure you’re not wearing one of each color?”
Questioning whether you made sure that you didn’t mistake navy blue for black…is just the sort of thing that only a mother could do: Who else would worry about the color of your socks? Who else could you show your new socks to in the first place? I’m willing to bet that if you asked this mother whether she seriously doubted that her daughter had put on matching socks, she’d assure you she didn’t. Her remark was probably just a way of showing she had paid attention to the purchase… (p.241)
Most grown women would feel as though her abilities were being questioned, but because the daughter saw her mother’s comment as “I’m just looking out for you,” she took no offense. Looking through a different lens changed her interpretation.
Advice to Mothers and Daughters:
Respond rather than react. Change the way you speak to your mother or daughter. Avoid the familiar arguments by clarifying what you’re talking about. Multiple studies of human behavior show self-perpetuating cycles of communication. Ask, “What do you mean by that?” instead of being provoked. Throw out the old script!
Answer her cry of “See me.” Accept who she is, even if you don’t agree with it. One seventh grader shares, “My mom doesn’t know what I like…she doesn’t like the clothes I like, so when I go shopping with her, it’s always a fight-it’s like, ‘You like THAT?’” Chances are Jackie’s mother knows exactly what her daughter’s tastes are – she simply disagrees with them.
“Our mothers are the measure of the world; if they don’t see us for who we think we are, we wonder whether we’re right about who we are,” writes Tannen. This need for approval, for acceptance continues long after adolescence. Mothers, too, need reassurance of their daughter’s love. Mother and daughter may know each other for a lifetime but only see the person she used to be, not the person she has become. Strive to understand, to step into the other’s shoes.
Dear mothers and daughters,
You play an irreplaceable role in her life. Accept and give the love she needs as you both learn the best way how.
