2010 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 103-115
Relations between mothers and daughters are said to be closer than ever these days and they are said to be “identical twins”. This paper focuses on mother-daughter relationships in the stage when daughters are in emerging adulthood and going to be autonomous, and mothers have separation anxiety. Data from emerging adult daughters (G3:N=367), mothers (G2:N=279) and grandmothers (G1:N=106) were collected to examine intergenerational change and transmission of mother-emerging adult daughter relationships.
Comparing daughter cohort (G3) to mother cohort (G2) as emerging adults and mother cohort (G2) to grandmother cohort (G1) as mothers, today's daughters (G3) seem to be more receptive to mothers, have more sense of identity with mothers, more dependent on mothers, had more pubertal conflict on mothers than mother cohort (G2). On the other hand, today's mothers (G2) have “less hierarchical and individuated intimacy” with their daughters (G3), and by contrast, the grandmothers (G1) had “hierarchical undifferentiated intimacy” with their daughters (G2) (retrospect).
As for intergenerational transmission, mothers (G2) seemed to identify themselves as a mother with her own mother (G1) (i.e. introjection), identify themselves as a daughter with her own daughter (G3) (i.e. projection). By this mechanism, mothers' separation anxiety with daughters were intergenerationally transmitted. This way, the “working model of separation-individuation” was shown in mother’s separation anxiety. On the other hand, relations with mothers perceived by daughters were hardly transmitted from generation to generation. Implication of these findings for better mother-daughter relationships was discussed.
