Parents raise their daughters under a significantly more critical scope than their sons. Sons are expected to have outward strength, while daughters are expected to carry more inner strength. When a daughter is first born like any infant she is fawned over, considered this precious gift brought into the family, but as parents sit in adoration, they begin to build up expectations and standards. These desires go for both children, the singular difference is emotional maturity within immediate family role expectations. From elementary age, we teach little girls to adopt (mothering) caretaking skills for everyone but themselves.  

     Mothering is becoming an emotional support for your family, a centerpiece. Emotional maturity, the skill of handling burdens with resilience, is often learned implicitly through family relationships.This differs in cultures as to its levels but remains distinguishable among all generations. Even so, in religions, the Catholic mother “Mary,” a senior saint, represents the most emotionally challenged mother in the history of Christianity, a beacon for incoming mothers. 

      But what’s a daughter's role? Alber, researcher and co-editor, participated as lead author in a 2019 study resulting in, “Role Expectations and Role Evaluations in Daughtering: Constructing the Good Daughter.” Alber found parent relationships with daughters carry four basic expectations the daughter must follow: showing respect, providing protection, eliciting mothering, and making time for connection.

     Chores assigned to daughters prepare them for household maintenance roles, centering around actions of resolving others: meals, laundry, and messes. I questioned why my brother did the lawn work while I did the laundry and dishes, while most days completing his chores too. Daughters often perform routine household chores that, though seemingly minor, contribute to a greater, often unrecognized, exhaustion.

      Becoming an emotional candlelight for the family starts with respect being used to silence the daughter's voice. Simplifying our emotions to comfort our parents is mothering, like cushioning we provide by nodding our heads or holding tight smiles. Compelling daughters into caretaker roles for both their parents' and siblings' safety

     I share a six-year age gap with my 23-year-old brother. He lives on his own now as of recently. My brother lived in arrogance to my parents past early adolescence; his poor decisions were watered down. He was given triple every opportunity my mother afforded him . I’d feel anger and envy with how he wasted their trust in him. As his younger sister, tired of the selfish attitude, I’d ask my parents, mainly my mother, to parent him. A role, not mine to grasp. This ached in aspects, knowing I wouldn’t receive the same opportunities as him, their daughter. 

    This behavior defines both protecting one's family dynamic and eliciting mothering. Daughters seek validation from mothers to self-evaluate their worth. Failure is gut-wrenching. Alber studied this dynamic, writing “When a daughter calls upon her mother for guidance or activates a need for an emotional evaluation such as pride, she is fulfilling her role expectations.” Wishing to resemble our mothers' roles, this generational mothering trait makes us feel inadequate as individuals.

     What if we’re not meant to fulfill roles like our mothers? What if we’re meant to create new paths rather than lives?  

     We’re to seek forming strong connections with our mothers. However, the relationship is often like war due to the mother observing the mirror effect fade as the daughter takes on her independence. Katabua, educational psychologist wrote “ a mother can often see the fruit of her labour in raising her daughter, which can be explicitly validating, especially when the daughter idealises her mother. In those instances, the daughter may put in the effort to receive attention from her mother, and the mother, in turn, feels validated when she recognises how much her daughter emulates her.”Mothers easily feel animosity toward their daughters' increasing distance, an equation for young girls' greatest rejection. As if all her emotional labor was nothing but minimal efforts from her mother's perspective. When striving for connection,  what do we do when validation is crushed or withheld? It's a craving to be strong like a daughter and loved unconditionally like a son.

     However there’s a resolution, not one of complexity but personal mindset mothers can grow. All mothers were once in their daughters’  position of responsibility, so they can prevent the cycle from repeating. The mindset essential to this change follows: a daughter is just as brilliant as a son but just as young and formable at heart as a son. Once a mother can understand her influence, she changes the daughter's experience and the family's dynamic. 

 “Baylor Study: What Does It Take to Be an 'Ideal Daughter?'” Baylor University, 11 November 2019,    

          news.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2019/baylor-study-what-does-it-take-be-ideal-daughter. Accessed 22 April 2024.

Nandkeolyar, Karishma H. “Why are mother-daughter relationships so complicated

         Parenting-mums-dads – Gulf News.” Gulf News, 21 March 2022, gulfnews.com/parenting/mums-dads/why-are-mother-daughter-relationships-so-complicated-1.1647871193941. Accessed 22 April 2024.