Young Adult Daughter's Relationships with Her Mother

─ A Study of Mother-Daughter System ─

Abstract

　　The relationships between young-adult daughters and their mothers were investigated from the perspective of Mother-Daughter System. Data were gathered from a survey of 867 daughters (range 23-35 yrs.) who had graduated from the same college, and had a surviving mother. Two major elements of Mother-Daughter System: ‘mother-daughter bond’ and ‘reciprocal support’ were investigated. Factor analyses identified four factors for each element respectively: Gratitude, Model for life, Dependency and Equality of the mother-daughter bond; and Daily, Emergency, Psychological, and Courtesy for reciprocal support. Results indicated that communication between the mother and the daughter plays an important role in maintaining Mother-Daughter System. Moreover communication included 2 types of interactions: (1)face-to-face communication with ‘family’ members and (2)non face-to-face communication with ‘friends’. It is suggested that the communication style between mother and daughter should be changed from ‘family’ to ‘friends’ when their relationship changes from dependency to independency.