The mother/daughter relationship for me has always been one of the harder relationships to handle. For many, the mother/daughter dynamic is seen as a “best friend” relationship, where they go shopping together, talk about boys (or girls) together, and gossip about whatever else. It is a thought that has always put a lot of pressure on the actual relationship I have with my mother, a strain almost, to try and create that “ideal” relationship, one that we have never really had.

Let me continue by saying that I love my mother, I really do. I look up to her, I see how strong of a woman she is, how hard she has worked to raise my brothers and I, and how loving of a wife she is to my father. Regardless of all of that, she is not an easy woman, and neither am I.

My teen years were not easy, I was a bit of a nightmare teenager, and with my mother having a similar personality to mine, our relationship took a huge hit during those years. In fact, we sadly stopped speaking for a while. Looking back on it years later, I wish it had not happened that way, but yet it is what has given us the relationship we now have. We pulled through, I got older, matured, and saw my mom in a different light. She went from being someone I really had no interest in knowing, to a person I work really hard to understand. Through that effort of at least trying to understand her, we have almost developed societies “ideal” mother/daughter relationship, I just think we have changed it to fit our ideal. It may not be telling each other secrets all the time and calling each other our “best friend,” but we respect each other, and have fun when we get together to have a girl’s day. For me, that’s really all I ever wanted, just to have a mom who gets me and for me to get her. I’m lucky in that, I have a mom that would never give up on me , and “ideal” relationship or not, I’m forever grateful.

To all the girls out there who might have a difficult relationship with your mom, know that sometimes it just takes time.** Try and see things from her perspective a bit more, and remember she is only human, and everyone makes mistakes.

Cheers!

Mirjam

**P.S. I know that this is not the case for everyone because sometimes there are very bad situations between mothers and daughters. This is a very broad statement more based on my own experience and what I took from it**