By Her View From Home 
Every mother-daughter relationship has its ups and downs, especially through the teenage years, but the ones that make it through to the other side with true friendship and affection are the ones I am so envious of . . . because I will never understand or experience it. When I am deeply troubled or overjoyed, my first phone call is not to my mom.
My mother is not a bad mother. She has wonderful qualities. But there is a rift between us. Call it a personality clash. Call it a generation gap. Call it whatever you will, but we are not compatible. The only thing we share is a love for my children (and I know some women don’t even have that). We don’t have common interests or hobbies. Sure, we have done things together. But I could easily have done the event or activity with someone else. We don’t share a special mother-daughter tradition that is kept special for the two of us. We simply exist together.
When I see friends describe their mothers as their best friends or confidants, I wonder what that might be like. See, I don’t feel safe sharing anything of substance. I often feel judged or brushed off, and things I find important are not important to her. Our relationship is one I have held at arm’s length for years and one that is superficially pleasant at best. My mother is not my friend. She is just my mother.
Through the years, I have wondered where our relationship went wrong. Where did we drift apart? It was never a big event. It’s a bunch of little things. She was very critical of my body, and that raised a lot of issues I still deal with today. Whenever I made choices she didn’t agree with, there was judgment and shame. She is afraid of conflict and lives her life resentfully doing things she doesn’t want to do and often took me along for the ride.
As a mother myself now, I cannot repeat those patterns. When I look at my little girls, my heart clenches at the thought of them feeling that way about me. Will they dread my visits or my phone calls? Will they find my presence more stressful than comforting? Goodness, I hope not.
Body issues? We don’t talk negatively about bodies in this house. We celebrate our differences and food is fuel for your body and fuel for your soul.
Bad choices? We talk through what happened, why we chose what we did, and other options. And I always end the conversation with “no matter what choice you make, I love you forever.”
Conflict? Conflict is not a dirty word. It’s a space for communication and creates a path forward. If I don’t teach them how to engage in healthy communication and conflict, I am setting them up for toxic behaviors and relationships on both sides.
I believe my mom did the best she could with the tools she was given. But I have to be better than her best. I don’t want my daughters looking at other mothers and daughters wishing we were them.
Yes, I am jealous of your relationship with your mom. But I’m working hard to have that someday. I didn’t get that as a daughter, but I desperately want that as a mother.
by Laura Niebauer Palmer 
by Autumn Knapp 
