Daughters and Mothers

The bond between daughters and mothers thrives despite, or maybe because of, the necessary differentiation that occurs in adolescence and young adulthood.

My daughters and I have survived quite a bit of turbulence in our relationships and have become good friends.

Yesterday I chatted with them for more than two hours by phone. When I finished talking, my Sweetie commented that it reminded him of my long phone conversations with my mother.

I recently found a letter written to me by my younger daughter over 12 years ago. At the time she was a mother to twin infants and a toddler. She never realized how difficult being a parent can be. She expressed amazement at how I handled being a single parent. She thanked me for being what Donald Winnicott called a “good-enough mother.”

Winnicott (1896-1971), a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, believed that mothers should not be perfect but rather be good enough.

"The good-enough mother...starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant's needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant's growing ability to deal with her failure. Her failure to adapt to every need of the child helps them adapt to external realities. (Winnicott, 1953)

He believed that this allowed the child to develop into a human being who was not egocentric and omnipotent.

I am thrilled to be called a “good-enough mother.”