How does a good mother-daughter relationship work?

My daughter Mila stands in front of me and shouts at me: «You're so upsetting me. You're always telling me what to do!» I'm angry too and get loud. She should just do her homework and tidy her room. The whole thing ends with the eight-year-old running away and slamming her room door behind her. Once again. Is this pre-puberty already?

After taking a deep breath, I knock on the door. She opens it and we hug. «I love you so much,» I tell her. «I love you too,» she replies. «Arguing is stupid.» My daughter and I have a situation like this several times a day. One moment everything bursts out of us and the next we're in each other's arms.

A mother who enjoys her job and brings this home is a great asset for children.

«This is typical of the mother-daughter relationship: it is full of conflict, but also very intimate,» says psychology professor Moritz Daum from the University of Zurich. And: «Just like the father-son relationship, the daughter's relationship with her mother involves an emotional bond with the closest attachment figure of the same sex.»

Daughters therefore often find it difficult to distance themselves from their mothers, which in turn can lead to more conflict. In addition, the daughter identifies with the mother, so the mother-daughter bond is particularly strong compared to the other parent-child bonds, says Daum.

But that's not the only thing that makes the mother-daughter relationship so special. Mothers are also role models for their daughters. They have a great influence on how comfortable girls and young women feel in their bodies and show them how they can fulfil their role as a woman and mother. They also have a strong role model function in their professional lives.

The relationship between mother and daughter therefore offers many opportunities, but also a few stumbling blocks. How can they succeed despite the challenges? And how does it change from early childhood through puberty to adulthood?

A particularly strong bond

Even today, a child generally spends more time with their mother than their father in the first few years of life. And even if the child's bond with another person such as the father, siblings or grandparents can be very stable, the mother-child bond is usually particularly strong, especially between mother and daughter.

This is shown by a study, the results of which were published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2016. The researchers compared brain scans of 35 families and found that the part of the brain that regulates emotions is more similar between mothers and daughters than in any other parent-child constellation.

According to the study, mothers are better able to empathise with their daughters emotionally and understand them. Social worker Celia Zappa from the Contact youth and family counselling service in Lucerne also says that mothers are generally closer to their children's feelings. And that's not all: «Mothers are very concerned about the social and emotional state of their children, they are empathetic and sensitive. They usually know quite well how their children are doing and recognise early on when something is wrong,» says Zappa.

A strong bond has consistently positive effects for a child. However, this can become a problem: When mothers misinterpret the close bond and think they have to constantly protect their children. Taking everything off their hands, protecting them around the clock and circling over them to control everything.

Daughters are much more rebellious towards their mothers. Boys, on the other hand, less so.

«Overprotection has a major impact on the mother-daughter relationship in particular,» says educationalist Margrit Stamm. "This is because girls are more likely to behave in a socially conformist manner and bond particularly strongly with their mother if she is prone to such behaviour.

It often becomes difficult when daughters want to break away from their mothers during puberty. This is not easy for independent development," says Stamm. The result: daughters rebel much more strongly against their mothers. Boys, on the other hand, rebel less, as they can separate themselves from their mothers more easily at an earlier age.

Working mother as a role model

When it comes to working, mothers in particular have a lot to think about: When should I go back to work? How much should I work? Will it harm my child if I'm not at home?

«Research shows that, contrary to what society often assumes, it doesn't bother children that much if their mum works a lot,» says Stamm. «But what does bother children: When mum is constantly stressed by work.» A mum who enjoys her job and brings this home is therefore a great asset for children.

This is also confirmed by family therapist and retired pastor Luitgardis Parasie from Northeim in Lower Saxony in Germany: «A mother who stays at home and longs for her job, who is bored when she has to play or do handicrafts with her children, is not doing anyone any favours.»

If mothers return to work at an early age, the children have fewer behavioural and social problems later on than children of mothers who do not work.

Parasie herself has always worked and her now grown-up daughters have no bad memories of this. «I never noticed it in a negative way. For us, it was just part of the job,» says daughter Brita. And her sister Nora says: «Mum really was a role model. Thanks to her, the classic division of roles between men and women has always remained alien to me.»

As the mother is a strong identification figure for her daughter, she also has an important role model function at work. And as research shows, working mothers have a positive influence on the development of their children, especially their daughters.

If mothers return to work at an early age, their children have fewer behavioural and social problems later on than children of mothers who do not work. This was shown by a British longitudinal study from 2011, and the researchers found that the correlation is even stronger for girls than for boys.

What is also clear from the results: If both parents work and are able to combine work and family life, the children benefit the most. This is because when the mother goes out to work, the father is automatically more involved at home. This in turn benefits girls in particular.

In a study, psychologist Alyssa Croft and her colleagues from the University of British Columbia (Ka) found that daughters whose fathers are involved in housework are more interested in working later in life and choose less stereotypical female occupations. These results were published in 2014.

In same-sex relationships, children are more likely to see both parents in employment and are therefore more likely to experience an egalitarian division of labour and household chores. In her work «The division of labour among same-sex couples in Germany», sociologist Andrea Buschner from the University of Bamberg shows that only 64.5 percent of heterosexual mothers work, compared to 84.9 percent of lesbian mothers.

But whether they work or stay at home with their children, girls and boys benefit most from a mother who organises her life according to her own needs and possibilities, experts such as Luitgardis Parasie point out.

A good body feeling

The other day at dinner: «I definitely need to lose those two or three kilos soon,» I say to my husband, stroking my stomach in annoyance. «Do you think you're fat, Mum?» my daughter asks promptly. And I get annoyed with myself.

«If you as a mother are constantly nagging about your body - a wrinkle here, a grey hair there, eating too much again, what do I look like - then daughters take over,» says family therapist Luitgardis Parasie. «We are role models.» It is therefore important to accept yourself, show this to your daughter and convey to her: «You are beautiful and unique, just the way you are.»

«Mothers are role models for their daughters, if only because they are of the same sex,» says psychology professor Moritz Daum. «And when it comes to physical changes such as the first period, a daughter is more likely to go to her mother than her father.»

Read more about this in the article: How do we prepare our daughter for her first menses?

Girls' body satisfaction and body image are also directly linked to the mother-daughter relationship. An Israeli study by Maya Maor and Julie Cwikel from 2015, for which 28 mother-daughter relationships were analysed, shows how a mother can positively influence her daughter's body image.

The analysis of the interviews revealed that daughters largely adopted the approach to their own bodies that their mothers had modelled for them in childhood. The purpose of the study was to identify strategies that mothers use to promote a positive body image in their daughters.

One strategy that proved to be effective, for example, was that the mothers paid attention to the language they used in relation to their own bodies and tried to avoid making derogatory statements about their weight or figure. Furthermore, some mothers educated their daughters about what an eating disorder is and how dangerous it can be.

To a large extent, daughters adopt the way of dealing with their own bodies that their mothers modelled for them in childhood.

Other mothers talked to their daughters about the body images propagated in public and encouraged them to be critical of mainstream messages from advertising or social media. Still other mothers reinforced their daughters' positive body image by hugging them often, kissing them frequently and making them feel just right.

Lots of arguments with the teenage daughter

When girls reach puberty, the relationship with their mother often becomes quite conflictual. Especially if the mother tends to overprotect her daughter, doesn't trust her to do anything, doesn't allow her any freedom or still tries to control as much as possible.

«Then it is more difficult for the daughter to develop autonomy and detach herself. She feels dependent and restricted,» explains Daum. This leads to a lot of resistance: «Overprotection works against the development of identity and makes the detachment process more difficult.» If the daughter then also has an impulsive temper, conflicts can become intense, says Daum.

But even without overprotective behaviour on the part of the mother, there can be many arguments with the daughter during puberty. This is normal and important. Because in order to find your own identity, you have to distance yourself from the person you identify with. Setting yourself apart.

And for a girl, the mother is the main figure of identification if she has the main responsibility for family management. For the son, it is the father. «This relationship is not without conflict either,» says Stamm. «But the conflicts tend to be dealt with physically, through competition or sport.»

According to social worker Celia Zappa, whether the relationship between mother and daughter remains stable during puberty has something to do with how well it has worked beforehand. A good foundation and the mother's willingness to no longer treat her daughter as a little girl, but as an adolescent woman, are therefore the best prerequisites for a stable and low-conflict relationship - for both sides.

Even if the teenage years were rather conflict-ridden, there is usually a turnaround in adulthood. At the latest when daughters become mothers themselves.

Educational scientist Stamm agrees: «The foundation for an intimate relationship between mother and daughter is laid early on. If a certain security of attachment can then develop, this is a good basis for mastering the conflict-ridden time of puberty.»

Even if the teenage years were rather conflict-ridden, there is usually a turnaround in adulthood, reassures Stamm. At the latest when daughters become mothers themselves: «Suddenly you understand your mother better and the relationship changes again.»

What mums should never do: give unsolicited advice. «Interfering in your child's upbringing is not an option,» says Parasie. «It's disrespectful and jeopardises the relationship with the daughter.»

But before daughters start their own family, they usually leave their parents' home. This in no way harms their relationship with their mother. Over 80 per cent of children who no longer live at home have contact with their mother at least once a week. This is shown by data from Chemnitz University of Technology, collected for the German relationship and family panel Pairfam.

Every second adult daughter stated that she often talked to her mother about personal matters. The researchers describe the relationship between adult daughters and their mothers as the most intensive of all parent-child constellations.

Show interest in the lives of others and keep in touch

Once the somewhat difficult and conflict-ridden period of puberty is over, the mother-daughter relationship changes once again. Mother and daughter become allies. The relationship that began during pregnancy and the first months of life, characterised by a strong bond, intimacy but also conflict, enters calmer waters.

If both manage to continue to meet as equals, show an interest in each other's lives and keep in regular contact, mother and daughter will benefit from this connection - for the rest of their lives.