How strong is the so-called mother-daughter bond?
According to a Pennsylvania State University study on the ties between midlife daughters and their elderly mothers it’s pretty good.
Researcher Karen Fingerman, Ph.D., found that despite conflicts and complicated emotions, the mother-daughter bond is so strong that 80 percent to 90 percent of women at midlife report good relationships with their mothers—though they wish it were better. The report was published in Psychology Today.
“The relationship between mothers and their adult daughters is one in which the participants handle being upset with one another better than in any other relationship” explains Fingerman, an assistant professor of human development and family studies.
Women generally are better than men at keeping relationships involving a high degree of intimacy, she says, and mothers and daughters share an investment in family that enhances their bond late in life.
“There is great value in the mother-daughter tie because the two parties care for one another and share a strong investment in the family as a whole,” says Fingerman, author of Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: A Study In Mixed Emotions. She bases her findings on questionnaires and interviews with 48 mother-daughter pairs.
The average age for mothers in the study was 76; for daughters it was 44.
Participants were asked to discuss sources of tension and positive aspects of their relationships, as well as demographic information and family background.
Here are interesting figures to keep you awake:
88 percent of adults say their mother has had a positive influence on them.
92 percent say their current relationship with their mother is positive.
88 percent of all mothers say their family appreciates them enough.
53 percent of adults say their mother had more influence than their father had.
60 percent of women say their mother was more influential than their father, compared with 45 percent of men.
