The mother daughter bond

                                
The relationship between a woman and her mother is so powerful, it affects everything from her health and self-esteem to all her other relationships, experts say. Dr Christiane Northrup, author of the book Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Hay House), says: "The mother-daughter relationship is the most powerful bond in the world, for better or for worse. It sets the stage for all other relationships."
Dr Northrup says that no other childhood experience is as compelling as a young girl's relationship with her mother. "Each of us takes in at a cellular level how our mother feels about being female, what she believes about her body, how she takes care of her health, and what she believes is possible in life."
Jennie Hannan, executive general manager of services at counselling provider Anglicare WA, agrees. "How a woman sees herself, how she is in her adult relationships with partners, and how she mothers her own children, is profoundly influenced by her relationship with her own mother," she says. But while most five-year-old girls love their mothers with an unshakeable conviction, it's often a different story by the time they reach adolescence. The once-adored woman who rarely put a foot wrong is suddenly always doing embarrassing things.

Different phases  

"The time you are going to start having major problems with your daughter will be around adolescence," Hannan says. "Adolescence is a very difficult, tumultuous time for children and their parents, and it tends to happen in girls earlier than in boys."

Fortunately this wild swing from closeness to remoteness usually only lasts until the daughter reaches adulthood. "If the mother and daughter can hang in there during adolescence, your relationship moves to a different level and becomes more of a respectful friendship," Hannan says.
"I think what triggers them coming back is they become independent ... they move away from home, get a job, do the adult things in life. There's a need to grow up and the relationship shifts."
The relationship will change again when the daughter has children. "There's a greater level of understanding of the sort of depth of responsibility that you have as a mother to that child." If you had a less-than-perfect relationship with your mother, it doesn't necessarily follow that you won't have a good relationship with your own daughter, Hannan says.
"It gives you a head start if you had a good relationship with your mother, but lots of women who have had bad relationships with their mothers have had really positive relationships with other women in their lives.
"The idea that you can have a perfect relationship with anybody is flawed. Mothers do get blamed an awful lot if something's wrong with their kids. But being aware of things that were good and not good in your relationship with your mum is really important in not repeating any mistakes."
For most, the mother-daughter relationship is ultimately fulfilling. Despite conflicts and complicated emotions, 80 to 90 per cent of women at midlife reported a good relationship with their mother, a Pennsylvania State University study found.
"The relationship between mothers and their adult daughters is one in which the participants handle being upset with one another better than in any other relationship," says researcher Karen Fingerman, author of Aging Mothers And Their Adult Daughters: A Study In Mixed Emotions (Springer). "There is value in the mother-daughter tie because the two parties care for one another and share a strong investment in the family as a whole."

Forging a strong bond with your own daughter

"I'm a big believer in mother-daughter time," Anglicare WA's Jennie Hannan says. "I think we underestimate how important it is for mums and daughters to do things together in those early years. Doing that builds a foundation that will help you get through adolescence." Here are some ideas:
Go on regular special outings just the two of you. "Even just going to the park, when your daughter is little, will be worthwhile," Hannan says. Start mother-daughter traditions, such as going on long walks together, dining at a favourite restaurant or spending time together updating family photo albums. Go shopping together. Make something together - cookies, a cake, an egg-carton caterpillar. Watch a movie together, even if it's just at home on the couch.
Keeping things on an even keel with your mum is not always easy, as many celebrity mother-daughter relationships demonstrate. Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Meg Ryan and Britney Spears have all had very public bust-ups with their mums.

It's never too late to repair your relationship

• Try a counselling session on your own first to help you work out whether or not it will be helpful to attend counselling with your mother or daughter.

• Sometimes it's not possible to repair things that happened long ago. Instead, focus on working out how you would like to treat each other now.

• Even if your mother has passed away, if you have unresolved issues you could benefit from counselling sessions. "Sometimes talking through the possibilities of why something might have occurred can help you get some perspective," Jennie Hannan says.

Compiled by Bronwyn McNulty