To wonder, how do you ensure a good mother/daughter realtionship

[Londonmamabychance]

Admittedly, my DC's are still very young, 2 and 4. My oldest is a girl, second one boy. The reason I'm worried is that my own relationship to my mother isn't very good. We just don't et a long AT ALL, and haven't been since I was a pre-teen.

She is very overprotective, a bit controlling and constantly doling out unsolicited advice that comes across as criticism and meddling. She is also quite negative, never listens to other people, moans a lot and is quite selfish. This all sounds horribly unkind and ungrateful, and beleive me, I am constantly working on imporving my relationship with her, on being patient and kind and trying not to take to heart her behaviour. She is not the kind of person who listens to anybody and would never change at all, so there is no point in trying to work through things with her, I have resigned to how she is, and am just trying to make our relationship bearable.

But I am SO WORRIED this will affect my own relationship to especially my DD. My DH frequently makes jokes about me being similar to my mother, which really upsets me (and I've told him so) because I am so unhapy with the way she treats me - and most people around her. I am trying to work through my own personal issues and attempting to analyse my own charater traits to avoid becoming like her. But I just don't have a model for a positive mother-daughter realtionship.

At the same time, I feel that most of my friends are also quite critical of their parents, and often don't get on well with their mothers. Is it even possible?

Thoughts?

@blueslipper, she can't cook, my father has always cooked, with no exaggeration she cannot boil an egg or make pasta, if he's not cookin and I'm not she will eat nothing but sandwiches.

Thanks for all the otherwise great advice, noted! It's a difficult balance with children, one thing I'm definitely not doing is treating som and daughter differently. They get the same amount of attention and DS gets to wear his sisters Elsa costume and play with all her dolls all he likes and she plays w his trains and cars etc.

From what I have seen of other people’s relationships the key seems to be acting like a decent human being.

^This. It's probably the answer to most problems in the world, never mind on the relationships board of MN.

More specifically, I think it's about finding a happy medium - neither too distant nor too clingy, neither too authoritarian nor too lax etc. Think about what it would have been helpful for your DM to be like with you.

My dd is nearly 14 and hovering on the edge of that moody, spiky teenage phase. I was never like that, so learning to navigate it is a steep learning curve for me. I'm trying to be supportive without interfering too much, be friendly without trying to be her 'mate', and to pick my battles.

My relationship with my mother has got worse and worse as I've got older. She's very controlling (classics have included: telling me I couldn't have my long hair cut to a perfectly normal, conservative, shoulder-length style when I was in my mid-twenties because I would look "ridiculous" and it would make me unemployable; telling me I'd "have to" abort my pregnancy if the baby had DS; telling me I can't have a second child: telling me she wouldn't "allow" me to send DD to paid childcare; trying to tell me at what age I'd be allowed to send DD to preschool), she loses her temper or resorts to emotional blackmail ("I might be dead soon!") if anything threatens her perception of herself as the perfect mother, and she's very prone to denying she's said something seconds after she's said it (and will use my history of depression against me to try to make me sound irrational).

My advice to you would be: be human. My relationship with my mother would be a lot better if she'd been happy to be a "good-enough" mother rather than having to maintain her image of herself as the best, most perfect, most special mother in the universe. Our relationship also had a long way to fall because she insisted on nothing less than being put on a pedestal for the first twenty plus years of my life.

Also, don't be scared to admit you've screwed up. I remember talking to one of my best friends about her relationship with her mum since she had her own kids. She said her mum would sometimes interfere or overstep her boundaries but she'd always come back and say "oh dear, sorry, I was being a bit bossy there, wasn't I?" . To be honest, I felt - and still feel - almost sick with envy at the thought of having a mother who actually apologises if she oversteps your boundaries rather than flying off the handle and raging about how she's sacrificed everything for her children.

@blueslipper, she can't cook, my father has always cooked, with no exaggeration she cannot boil an egg or make pasta, if he's not cookin and I'm not she will eat nothing but sandwiches

Your mother can't cook - that isn't your problem. Don't make it your problem. She has obviously managed to eat all these years, after all you described her as "elderly".

It's a give and take situation. You and your family have moved in with your parents. Just allow your parents to do what they would have done before you moved in. You can't move your family in and expect everyone else to look after you all.

Your mother doesn't cook and you do all the cleaning. Maybe your parents would prefer to not be around someone constantly cleaning. I very much doubt two elderly people make much mess, whilst 2 young children create a lot of mess. If your children are making a mess and you are making a mess in the kitchen, as you prepare food for YOUR family, it's only fair you clean it.

Your mother said she missed her GC when you were living away. I don't doubt she did. However, there is a huge difference between seeing the GC once/twice a week than having to be around them 24/7.

Young children can be very difficult for someone you describe as "elderly and tired" to manage for extended periods. Grandparents, usually, love to see their GC. They are, usually, glad to give them back too so they can rest.

I babysit my GC every weekend. I see them twice in the week. I love them very much and I love to spend time with them. I wouldn't want to live with them though, or have my house and personal space taken over by my DC, who had moved out, and their DC, for more than a few days.

That would upset the balance of my family time and time for myself, doing things I want to do. We all need personal space. Once you move out your relationship with your DM and your Dc's relationship with their GP will improve - once everyone is no longer walking on eggshells.