I and Ana are both wearing El Ganso knitwear dresses
The subject of mothers and daughters is like a warped record. It is so old and never ending, that it doesn’t matter what generation you are from – everyone has a story.
I look at my sweet little angel, how she looks like me, how she acts like me, her little tantrums, and I am so in love I can’t imagine any feelings toward her besides unconditional love. Yet as little girls grow up and mothers (unfortunately with time and age) become more cynical – perhaps what they like to call “world-savvy” – other emotions can enter the picture, and they’re not always positive. Whilst maternal jealousy or shall we say competitiveness, is a loaded subject, I daresay it exists! Other things like excessive controlling and enmeshment also rear their ugly heads and at times, feelings of disappointment and resent can also make their way into the equation. However, as both a daughter and a mother, I tell myself this is ok.
My mother, born in Soviet Russia, lived through decades of political and socio-economic change as well as the transformation of gender roles and expectations in society. Amongst these is a mother-daughter relationship, one that has profound influence on women’s gendered subjectivity.
My mother was brought up by a woman who said that a man is, and always will be, head of the house. He is the breadwinner, he is our hero, he is our “God” and hence everything we do should be for his comfort and wellbeing. Remember this was only ten or so years after the Second World War, when near 30 million Russian men were killed and the gender ratio (it was no joke!) was seven girls to every boy! My mother grew up with this and even though the swinging 70s and crazy 80s left their mark on her, she was still that idyllic wife and mother her own mother had taught her to be. The knowledge stayed and what was learned became imprinted forever. Evolving society, however, coupled with opportunities for personal development as well as significant exposure to the West (in particular the fall of the Berlin wall 1989, shortly followed by the break up of USSR) actually made women of that generation more daring and powerful.
My mother wanted me to become this alpha female. A woman who could do everything and achieve the impossible. A classic “stage mom”, she wanted to live vicariously through me – my achievements, my experiences, my ups and downs and my relationships. She became my best friend and my confidant. I thought she knew best and she in turn sought comfort and reassurance knowing that she’d undoubtedly equipped me with the best life skills any woman could have. She taught me how to become everything she was afraid of, or didn’t have a chance of becoming herself: confident, self-accomplished, well educated, but at times narcissistic, even self-obsessed and superficial. She couldn’t be all those things growing up, but I could.
Of course there are countless other women out there who have been put under the same pressure to uphold their mother’s staunch values. But in this day and age it seems it’s no longer critical to impart your own views and aspirations on your children.
I find a lot of women and mothers my age who are far from happy, and I imagine that many of them are struggling to fulfil their mother’s idealistic ways and mimic their mother-daughter relationships with their own children. Maintaining work and family life, being a good wife and mother is no small task! Women should celebrate their womanhood, their freedom and their power to make their own choices. Generations of mothers have made false predictions about what is achievable, and frankly it’s so often unrealistic.
Of course I can’t speak for everyone – every mother-daughter relationship is unique. But if like me, you grew up thinking you had to fulfil a role defined by external pressures, I say the cycle can and will be broken. Don’t put your daughters on trial just because they have other ideas about life. Let us not tell them the rules as we know them, but let them make and break their own set. Accept who they are and let them figure out how to be wives, mothers, and most importantly women. And I don’t mean superwomen… I mean, fallible, flawed and perfectly imperfect women who have made all the mistakes their own daughters will one day make too.
And what about my relationship with my mother now? Well, it’s inspiring, beautiful, trying and at times tumultuous, but more than anything it’s unique.
