Earlier this week, I finally watched the movie "Coco" about family forgiveness and being remembered (centered around Dia de Muertos culture). It did once again bring up the fact that I have a strained relationship not only with my family but with the idea of "family."
This morning, I saw an advice article about parent-child relationships. A father had written to the columnist about how he felt like his daughter was using "boundary" talk as a way to push him out of her life and that it has been happening since her early teens, but he his love for he is so big he doesn't know what to do. There was a lot of what he said that I'm sure echoes what Mom would say about me (except she - whether begrudgingly or not - has given me more space and grace than the writer has to his daughter).
The columnist's response was so spot-on and insightful that I wanted to be sure to keep the text where I could refer to it as needed. I'm removing the portions that aren't as applicable and changing "Dad" in the text to "Mom" to help make it a more direct connection in my mind. Bold text is my own emphasis.
I can hear how much you want to have a closer relationship with your daughter, and how hurt, frustrated, and confused you are by her behavior. You seem to be in so much pain, in fact, that it’s causing you to ignore her requests—even if doing so causes her pain—and to go so far as to consider estranging yourself from her by refusing to have what you call a “bounded” relationship.
Any parent who feels rejected by her child would find the experience painful, especially if the perceived rejection has been there for years. But I think what has kept you locked in this pain has been your misinterpretation of her message to you. What you have been hearing is: Stay away from me. But what she has been doing is offering you an invitation: I want you in my life, Mom, but in a way that will allow me the space to come closer. In other words, by asking you for some distance, your daughter is not pushing you away but desperately trying to connect with you.
To understand this paradox better, let’s step back and look at when you first noticed your daughter “pulling away”—in her early teens. This age coincides with the important developmental stage in which children begin a process of separation and individuation and assert themselves as distinct individuals. This pulling away is crucial for healthy development because it helps teens form a sense of self on the path to adulthood: Who am I separate from my parents? What do I believe? What gives me pleasure, passion, and purpose? What choices and paths make sense for me? Who are my people? Which parts of my life do I want to keep private and which do I want to share?
When parents encourage this process while also being present and available, their teens grow into adulthood feeling loved and valued for who they are. As a result, they tend to have an easier rapport with their parents, safe in the knowledge that they can be both separate and connected at the same time, able to ask for and negotiate their relational needs. But when parents interfere with this process, those teens can grow into adults who push for the autonomy they were never offered at the appropriate time. When your daughter says that you treat her “like a child,” that’s because as she moved through her teens and 20s, you didn’t support her independence. You continue to chafe at her attempts to make her own choices and navigate her own space.
The good news is that now you have the opportunity to do things differently, especially if you understand that her request for boundaries is a bid to build closeness. Boundaries are what create trust, comfort, and safety in a relationship by defining what is and isn’t okay. You say that you don’t think you want a “bounded relationship,” but all healthy relationships—romantic, platonic, and familial—are “bounded relationships” in the sense that relationships aren’t free-for-alls. What your daughter seems to be asking for in attempting to set these boundaries is this: that you honor her personhood as separate from yours.
I don’t think that you want to lose your daughter, but if you continue to reject her attempts to repair this relationship, that’s exactly what could happen. So I’m going to ask you to listen closely to what she’s been trying so hard to say, even if she hasn’t presented it this way. Here’s what I’m hearing from her:
Mom, we’ve been struggling for a long time. We both feel misunderstood, angry, hurt, and unheard. It will be sad for both of us if we can’t repair our relationship. This tension has sat between us for so long that I believe we can’t solve this on our own. It would mean the world to me if you would speak with a therapist to try to understand why it’s been hard for you to see where I’m coming from when I ask to be treated like an adult. Please know that I’m only asking because having a relationship with you is important to me, and it’s painful to contemplate spending the rest of our lives in conflict with each other. I might be an adult and ask to be treated as one, but like most adults of any age, I still long for a meaningful relationship with my mother, which is why I’m fighting so hard for it.
I know you see my request for fewer phone calls as pushing you away, but I’m making that request in order to keep you in my life. I’m hopeful you’ll begin to hear me differently, and when that happens, we can become closer over time. I know you don’t intend to hurt me.
My greatest hope, Mom, is that you’ll accept my suggestion as an invitation into my life, because despite the friction between us, the last thing I want is to lose you, and I’m afraid that this is exactly where we’re headed. You say that you love me deeply, and I believe that you do, but you don’t seem to realize that the way you’re showing your love doesn’t feel loving to me at all. For me, a big part of feeling loved is knowing that my feelings and well-being matter to you. Do I matter enough to you to get some help with this? Or are you willing to risk losing the very thing both of us want so badly—a loving mother-daughter relationship?
She’s still waiting for your answer. The choice is yours.
