It can be the best of relationships and the worst of relationships - often at the same time. The bond between a mother and daughter is one of the strongest, but it's also among the most complicated.
Interpretation
The mother-daughter relationship is deeply complex, embodying both love and conflict.
In this quote, Deborah Tannen emphasizes the dual nature of the mother-daughter relationship, highlighting that it can simultaneously evoke both affection and tension. This complexity often leads to a strong emotional bond that is layered with unique challenges, making the relationship one of the most profound yet complicated connections in life.
In practice
During a speech about family dynamics, one might use this quote to discuss the complexities of parent-child relationships.
Women as mothers grapple with corresponding contradictions. The adoration they feel for their grown daughters, mixed with the sense of responsibility for their well-being, can be overwhelming, matched only by the hurt they feel when their attempts to help or just stay connected are rebuffed or even excoriated as criticism or devilish interference.
Sister relationships span a huge range, from best friends to worst enemies. From 'I adore her; I talk to her five times a day' to 'I decided to cut her out of my life.' For most women, it's in between.
The trickiest thing about the double bind is that it operates imperceptibly, like shots from a gun with a silencer.
For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.
Mothers and daughters find in each other the source of great comfort but also of great pain. We talk to each other in better and worse ways than we talk to anyone else.
Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture.
A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's too late.
It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.
He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!
You belong somewhere you feel free.
and if anybody asks me is it easy to forget I'll say it is easily done, you just pick anyone, and pretend that you never have met
There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.