A Review of The Mother-Daughter Project
How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together and Beat the Odds.
Jun 28, 2009
"For many women, our relationships with our mothers and with our daughters are at the core of our emotional lives". This is the heart of The Mother-Daughter Project (Penguin Books Ltd., 2008, ISBN 978-0-452-28916-1) a book by psychiatrist SuEllen Hamkins and family therapist Renee Schultz. In the introduction, the authors tell of how the idea behind this project came about:
"Ten years ago, watching our carefree seven-year-old daughters riding their bikes through the neighborhood, ponytails flying in the wind, it frightened us to imagine that, someday, they would be teenagers. The possibility that there might come a time when our vibrant and affectionate young girls — girls who shared their every thought with us, whose knees we bandaged when they fell — would want nothing to do with us was painful to consider.”
The authors were determined to find a way, as mothers, to help their daughters make it through adolescence strong, confident and whole while also sustaining the positive and loving mother-daughter relationship created in childhood, through the teen years and into adulthood.
The Birth of a Culture
The authors tell how, in 1997, they joined other concerned mothers from their community to brainstorm ways in which they could enable their girls to thrive through adolescence while still maintaining a close mother-daughter connection. In doing so, they created a small and supportive community of mothers and daughters where maintaining this mother-daughter connection was the norm. The group not only served as a community of girls and women from which to grow and bond with, but also as a source of support for the mothers as they navigated their way through adolescence.
The authors explain: "The ideas we present in this book are not about achieving some impossible parenting perfection. Rather, they show how we can come together to think about mothers and daughters and expand the tools and practices available to us in ways that ease and support the work of mothering and help our daughters grow into whole, healthy women. The Mother-Daughter Project is not a final vision set in stone, but a living, collaborative work-in-progress."
A Pro-Girl Culture
One of the main philosophies presented in this book is that as mothers, you can create a healthy "girl culture" for your daughters by engaging with them and participating in activities they love and honoring their unique interests. The authors also present the idea that the creation of an intimate community of females will provide support for both the moms and daughters, provide an opportunity for moms to model and nurture lasting female friendships, and an opportunity to pass on womanly wisdom as you continue fostering your relationship, enjoying each other and having fun together.
The Mother-Daughter Project
"The mother-Daughter Project presents a model of prevention. By engaging in developmentally appropriate activities with our girls and finding methods of keeping channels of communication open with them as they become teens, we have discovered how mothers can help their daughters thrive during adolescence" (excerpt, The Mother-Daughter Project, page 5).
For readers who decide to follow the example set by this book and create their own mother-daughter group, the "activity chapters", divided by age (7-17 years), are a great jumping off point and include such topics as:
- Celebrating Girls
- Fostering True Friendship
- Welcoming Cycles
- Learning to Love Our Bodies
- In Transition
- Teaching Safety and Freedom
- Speaking Her Heart and Mind
- Earning Money and Wielding Power
- Growing Roots and Wings
"We have found, backed by the latest psychological research, that the commonly held notion that daughters need to separate from their mothers during adolescence in order to grow into healthy, independent adults is misguided and counterproductive. Instead, by teaming with other mothers and theit daughters, we have created a community that supports us as mothers, empowers our daughters and strengthens our mother-daughter bonds" (excerpt, The Mother-Daughter Project, page 5).
A Mother-Daughter Map
Author Victoria Secunda once wrote "A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. And mothers are their daughters' role model, their biological and emotional roap map, the arbiter of all their relationships." The Mother-Daughter Project puts Secunda's words into action by telling a story of the possibilities that lie ahead for mothers and daughters while also serving as a road map, pointing out the ways to get there.
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