Between Mother and Daughter

I was once asked about the most prominent problems of upbringing in our society and how to treat them, and I answered that the first problem of upbringing is the severing of the essential ties between children and parents, at the very time when children are in most urgent need of them. For lack of time I could not describe the remedy then, and so I resolved to examine how the relationship between a mother and her daughter is developed and preserved, and the good that results from that for her daughter and for society.

Every girl has a unique personality, which is the outward expression of the life of her inner self — the life of her mind, her heart, and her spirit — and it varies according to the factors that clash or combine in forming it. The two fundamental factors in the formation of personality are heredity and upbringing. The physical and mental potentialities on which a girl's personality rests are the offspring of heredity, and chance is what determines their quantity and kind; but the responsibility for shaping those potentialities, refining them, and developing them falls upon the mother.

A girl's conduct is for the most part a set of habits she picks up from her surroundings, and in the first years these surroundings are limited to the home; hence the mother plays the first role in her formation. It is she who instills in her daughter the ideals she wants her to hold fast to, and she who trains her to form all the habits of thinking, feeling, and conduct that can bring her to those ideals. The mother must therefore, first, study her daughter's potentialities and analyze them, so that she can guide her wisely toward goals suited to her natural gifts and inclinations; second, she must establish between herself and her daughter a bond that enables her to work with her toward reaching those goals. As for defining these goals, that depends on the girl's own potentialities, on her mother's culture, and on the advancement of her society.

I shall now try to describe in some detail the mother's relationship with her daughter and how this relationship is developed and preserved.

Every mother aspires to have between herself and her daughter a bond of friendship that entitles her to know all the passions and thoughts stirring in her daughter's soul, the troubles she meets, and the difficulties she endures. Often the mother grieves when her daughter withdraws from her and chooses someone else — perhaps a girl of her own age — to whom she recounts her experiences, to whom she voices her views on life, and whom she consults in her private and public affairs alike, without showing any desire to talk with her mother or draw near to her.

The mother is pained by this abnormal state of things and wishes she were in the place of that girl to whom her daughter feels at ease talking; and she lays the blame on her daughter, who has become — as she supposes — rebellious and disobedient, heedless of her mother's advice and indifferent to her opinions. The truth is that the girl too suffers from this estrangement, and her pain is deeper and sharper than her mother's, for she does not merely long to talk to her about her affairs but sees that she stands in pressing need of it.

The girl may sometimes rebel at this age, but some of this rebellion is natural, for the girl begins to show her individuality and to assert her independent personality. This does not mean she has done without her mother's counsel; in truth she is in dire need of it, and she would like to consult her mother on some of her private matters, but she cannot find in herself the courage to broach conversations of this kind, believing that her mother would disapprove of such talk and would not welcome the gesture from her — since there is no bond linking the mother's mind and spirit with the daughter's mind and spirit. So the daughter decides to resort to the advice of someone who can understand her problems, and her choice falls on a girl who exceeds her neither in age nor in experience. Or she may keep her own counsel and follow her inclinations and desires, which are rarely sound, since there is nothing in her surroundings to nourish her soul, elevate her feeling, and raise her toward a higher aim to steady her steps; so she wanders off, driven by the force of life blazing within her and by her natural desire for adventure and her curiosity, and then stands bewildered before the pressure of the family, the chatter of the neighbors, and the harshness of public opinion, with no guide and no supporter.

If the mother went back a few years and searched in the folds of her own soul for the cause of this estrangement, she would find that the blame comes back to her, because she supposed her duty toward her daughter and toward her physical, mental, and spiritual growth was done once her daughter was able to eat, dress, and walk by herself without any helper; so she left her to the hands of fate and turned away to other occupations. It escaped the mother to grasp that among her essential duties is also constant vigilance in following the growth and development of her daughter's inclinations, and concern to find her an elevated company that would develop and nourish her artless spirit; and then she must accompany her, alert and understanding, through all the developments of her inner and bodily life, and keep pace with her through these stages of her life tactfully, without pressure or domination.

The establishment of a true relationship between the mother and her daughter — one that leads the daughter to confide to her mother all the passions and dreams that pass through her mind and all the experiences, joyful or painful, that come her way — is not achieved without effort and complete wakefulness on the mother's part toward her daughter from her earliest years; that is, from the time she begins, at two years of age, to lay before her mother's hearing her first experiences of this life. If the mother shows no interest in her daughter's talk — or rather, if she shows no genuine desire to listen to her — she has begun to push her daughter away from her, without realizing that the bond she will wish to strengthen later on must have its seeds planted in childhood; otherwise, a return to it after long years is not to be hoped for from a girl who at the very outset met with indifference and lack of concern for her affairs.

The wise mother, then, must make of these first small conversations opportunities to strengthen her ties with her daughter; she must give her room to talk frankly with her about all the matters that trouble her mind, and prepare for her the atmosphere suited to that. She must also exchange confidence with her, telling her of the similar experiences that befell her when she was her age; the daughter then feels at ease with this exchange of confidence and finds a special pleasure in comparing her experiences with her mother's and in seeking out the points of likeness and difference between them.

A mutual confidence such as this is the greatest guarantee of continued understanding between mother and daughter. When the mother sits with her daughter and recounts to her, simply and without affectation or muddle, stories and incidents that happened to her in her own youth, thoughts or feelings that once troubled her, the girl is reassured, finding that the thoughts passing through her mind and the passions filling her soul are all natural signs of growth and of mental and bodily maturing, and therefore call for neither concealment nor denial.

Multiplying such sittings and such conversations develops in the girl a feeling of self-confidence and encourages her to approach her mother without timidity and lay her thoughts before her whenever she finds it necessary.

Moreover, frank discussion of personal problems with people one feels at ease with and trusts in their good will and sincerity greatly lightens the weight of one's violent experiences. If the girl does not find this faithful friend in the person of her mother, she is bound to look for one elsewhere, and she may find one in a person unworthy of trust.

Finally, once the mother joins her life to her daughter's, she finds herself facing the standing truth: that the first of her duties toward her daughter is to make her own conduct a supreme example for her daughter to follow; for however she may try to flee from this great responsibility, it will cling to her to the end. Therefore, if the mother wishes to develop in the person of her daughter desirable habits of feeling, thinking, and conduct, she must first create in herself the essential qualities of those habits, so that she herself becomes the ideal example, not for her daughter alone, but for all the girls of her society.

A true and firm relationship between the mother and her daughter is the sole guarantee of sound upbringing, for the factor of upbringing is the only factor that can be shaped and modified, since the factor of heredity is fixed and settled. Every individual is born with numerous potentialities for different personalities, and thanks to upbringing alone do varied personalities emerge from a single heredity. Hence it falls to the mother to direct her daughter and help her bring out the personality that leads her to the perfection of her self. Once the mother is convinced of this truth and feels the greatness of the responsibility laid on her shoulders, she will find that the role she herself plays in determining her daughter's life and in forming and shaping her personality is a fundamental role which she cannot overlook or undertake unworthily; it deserves to occupy the first place in her life.

And what good could a mother hope to achieve for the advancement of her society better than leading her daughter toward the formation of an ideal personality in which she may take pride and glory?