FREE ESSAY ON MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONFLICTS

MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONFLICTS

"My mother's expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she lost
everything." (p. 143, The Joy Luck Club)
In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, the characters Suyuan and Jing-Mei (June)
have a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship: one that ultimately is composed of
conflict and commitment for one another. Their opposing ideas and beliefs is the product
of their life experiences, which are drastically different. This and their lack of
communication are responsible for many of the problems they face in their relationship.
Only when June learns of her mother's past, her life experiences and the ways in which
she was raised, can these conflicts be resolved. Amy Tan reveals several themes through
her novel, in which she intends for her audiences to understand and learn. Some themes
include such topics as life's choices, and understanding our family and ourselves.
Mother-daughter relationships are perhaps the most painful but the most rewarding
relationship women share. And though a simple comment such as "You're becoming more like
your mother every day." might offend or strike terror in the female heart, she is still
considered to be the rock on which we stand, and a steady hand that guides us through
life. To understand the mother-daughter connection (healthy or destructive) it is wise to
delve deeper and explore why we are first- natural enemies, secondly- why she (our
mother) is determinably unpleasable, and last, how to redefine the mother-daughter
relationship, so that both can learn and accept the other as she presently is by
appreciating the other's good qualities and accepting the bad.
Natural Enemy
What is it about the mother-daughter attachment that yields natural enemies and demands
so much power?
No other human being is as similar to her daughter than the daughter's mother. They are
mirrored from head to toe. And almost replicated down to their genes and sexual make-up.
Like our mother, we have breasts; we bear children and usually are our family's caretaker
(notwithstanding feminist revision). She also becomes competition when vying for "Dad's"
attention. She ultimately is the "yardstick" against which we measure ourselves, whether
in education, career, relationships or motherhood.
Whether our relationship is strained or easy, hostile or amiable- we need her, if only to
validate our femaleness and to guide our way. It is a need that never leaves in the best
or the worst of mother-daughter relationships.
The mother sets he tone for her daughters life, provides a road map and role model and
continues to be and example, particularly her genetic and emotional example.
But if mother and daughter have no connection, we cannot ask or talk to the one person
whose psyche and body have "programmed" our own. That's why the loss is incalculable when
a daughter has to figure it out for herself, trail blaze rather than learn from an
example. Such a daughter has to discover herself, alone.
The Unpleasable Mother
What causes the lack of communication or the broken connection between the mother and
daughter?
Most of the conflict that June and her mother face are based upon misunderstandings and
negligence concerning each other's feelings and beliefs. June lacks the ability to fully
comprehend or know how her own mother because she is ignorant of her tragic and painful
memories of the past. Suyuan lost her two daughters in China and her entire family was
destroyed in the war. Suyuan decided to leave for America, leaving China behind and
placing her future and the future in the promise of a new land. Suyuan hides her past and
puts all her effort into turning her daughter into the daughter she could never be:
pushing June to succeed in dance and academics and piano.
Like Suyuan and June, in many ways mothers and daughters are alien, each foreign to the
other. The chasms that separate them often seem unbridgeable. Even if a parent pulls no
stops and puts forth their best efforts, it is no guarantee the child will turn out well.
A mother cannot or could not control the immutable facts of her own history. Perhaps all
her siblings were girls, or maybe she was the only child. Were her parents divorced? Was
her family rich or were they poor? Thousands of variables create the child as a whole and
the mother as a whole. It is these variables that cause destruction in a mother-daughter
relationship and yet they also explain why our mothers are unpleasable. 
The Generation Gap
Mothers and daughters have different views of the world. Women today in their 30's and
40's have less in common with their mothers than any 2 generations in history. These
daughters, today, are part of the largest generation in history: The Baby Boomers. (Men
and women born between1946 and 1964) 
Changes for women in this generation were outstanding. Unlike our mother's mothers, women
of today are not defined solely by their spouses or their children. Women are now
breaking the "glass ceiling" barrio and forging into territory that was once dominated by
men. Mother's of today's adult women were not allowed or allotted therapy,
self-expression and to be relaxed. These women were brought up to be seen and not heard.
The Cultural Gap
Women now in their 60's and 70's find the world of their daughters foreign in ways of
tradition and language. Many were immigrants or first-generation Americans whose parents
brought them up with foreign values and accents. Folkways of other cultures cling to very
traditional families and provide fodder for mother-daughter disaffection.
The Historic Gap
Most mothers of our mothers were of age to have children during the Depression, yet
because of the Depression, which had a devastating effect on women, most could ill afford
large families so their choice to have fewer children took away from their cultural
value.
The Historic gap that divides mothers and daughters includes attitudes towards child
rearing. "The yardstick by which a mother is judged is very much a measure of her time."
(Alice Koller)
The Temperamental Gap
The cultural and historic differences that separate mothers and daughters make up the
temperamental mix. Their intrinsic personalities regulate how mothers would respond to
such differences.
It is here that we can see how mothers vary in the treatment of their children.
Temperament is like a barometer that measures how people behave. Behavior has many
sources. According to studies by Stella Chase M.D. and Alexander Thomas M.D., of New York
University Medical Center: genes account for more than half of personality traits, the
other half is composed of family and experience.
Leadership, obedience, languidness, and vulnerability are all inherited. Intimacy also
seems to be inherited: and is one trait that can greatly be strengthened by the quality
of interaction in a family.
After failing to excel at each task at hand, June feels more and more resentment towards
her mother. She sees her mother's hopes as expectations, and when she does not live up to
these expectations she begins to feel like a failure. When June performs her piano piece,
filled with mistakes, she looks through the crowd towards her mother's face. June sees
shame and disappointment. But, what June failed to see, was that Suyuan was not ashamed
or disappointed because June failed her expectations, but that the real reason for her
mother's upset was that June did not desire the best for herself. She did not have hopes
or expectations of herself, and lacked the passion to succeed in anything...June failed
because she didn't try nor care.
A person's general way of looking at life is her own. Like a concerto (music piece), life
is filled with chords that may contain major or minor keys. The tempo may vary but it
eventually resolves itself. How she views herself and the world is established by early
experiences. Though we cannot change our basic selves- we can adapt, learning to respect
peoples differences, especially if parents understand that differences are not always
wrong. Because of temperamental hitches between mothers and daughters, one woman's joy is
another's problem.
Emotional Gap:
Tension is demonstrated in how mothers and daughters express or restrain their feelings
for each other. Many daughters feel that no matter what they do their mothers will remain
forever unpleasable.
Most mothers do love their daughters...so why can't they express it?
Maybe the mother was raised to respect their elders at their own expense, and to restrict
their feelings and needs. Since the "emotional survival" of those mothers required
obedience and the invention of their false self, they had to repress their anger and
believe that mother was always right. In unhappy mother-daughter relationships, a
daughter can express a feeling without acting upon it and this would trigger a
long-denied anger or sadness to emerge in the mother.
A mother who has not resolved her relationship with her parents - may project dissonance
onto her children. She, therefore, may favor the child who gives her no "trouble" and
come down hard on the child who reminds her of her insecure, unreliable, or ungrateful
self as a child. This process is called triangling. The child who is the scapegoat gets
the mothers harshest feelings in the process.
Like a caged hamster on its wheel, many mothers remain trapped, so to speak in their
feelings of rejection that was caused by oppressing their anger and their past.
These mothers desperately try to prolong their maternal power and keep their daughters
near, and not allowing real separation and mutual respect. Their unhappiness is motivated
by the variables of history, temperament, and so forth.
The behavior of unpleasable mothers falls into certain categories. These mothers control
through:
? Neediness (Doormat)
? Corrections (Critic)
? Enmeshing (Smotherers)
? Fear (Avenger)
Many of these categories may overlap- critical at one time and perhaps mullified at
another.
The Doormat:
This categorizes women/mothers as ideal, however, of an earlier time. During the early
20th century, (she) the mother, would be considered as the epitome of womanhood:
yielding, fragile, soft: her demeanor summoning adjectives full of prefeminist praise.
The doormat is a woman of heartbreaking weakness and dependency.
How could someone with these qualities cause conflict on the mother-daughter
relationship?
Studies have shown that daughters of "Doormats" view their mother as: dependent,
depressed, childlike, and pitiful.
The women are what Dr. Murray Bowen describes as "deselfed", unable to defend themselves.
They obliterate their own needs and punish themselves. They believe that anything that
goes wrong in their lives or their family's is their fault.
And so doormats often become utterly dependent on their daughters. The daughters are thus
their mother's mother. These daughters grow to resent their mother's fragile dependency.
The Critic:
The critics come in many forms, regally condemning people who are not "the right sort."
The critic is often a woman of high energy and intense personality. Depending on her own
family history and temperament, she may be given to loud outbursts. Daughters of these
mothers recall constant screaming and fighting (either with the daughter or any other
household member, as the mother finds endless faults with them. The critic preys on
opportunities to be disappointed in her daughter. Critics control their daughters with
lengthy demands. Many of these mothers complain about their daughters not being
physically demonstrative- but it's the critics who are seldom able to express their
feelings, and physical affections or to receive them.
And just as power is used to keep their daughters close, so is guilt used to ensure that
her daughter doesn't get too close.
The Smotherer:
The smotherer is a mother who gladly sits up all night to type her child's term paper.
The somtherer is also the type of mother that relies on her children to comfort her, and
provide the body in which the mother can live. This mother decides what the daughter
wants and needs. She defines her child's happiness in terms of her own needs and
perceptions.
For example: The mother says: "I'm cold." So she then tells her daughter: Put on a
sweater."
The Avenger:
The avenger is brimming with a harvest of shame to be vented upon her children. She is
their mother in the supermarket yanking her toddler by the arm and screaming at it.
The avenger is addicted to discord. As this is the retribution or "payback" for her
long-forgotten childhood filled with pain. Her need for power is so acute and so fine and
narrow is the boundary between her reason and her rage that a sneeze will easily upset
her.
The most striking personality of an avenger is the need to be the center of attention and
he will go to all lengths to remain in the spotlight.
The majority of avengers were once abuse children physically or psychologically. And such
children are more likely to mistreat their own children. Often she is not afforded the
conscious choice to break the cycle. Instead she rejects, isolates, terrorizes, ignores,
and corrupts her child, thus ensuring that the cycle repeats itself.