Moms can feel alone in or out of a marriage for a number of reasons. Fathers can be absent because the marriage ended or because they simply aren’t present to some essential degree within the family. Even with something as simple and seemingly harmless as a mom being primarily responsible for the children’s spiritual and religious education with dad taking most of the sacred days and celebrations as time off, that distance can create loneliness for a woman in her marriage.
If dad is absent in other ways, because his job or hobbies demand it, because he isn’t capable of being emotionally present for his family, or any number of other reasons, mom can learn to operate in two orbits – the larger of which is comprised of she and the children, the smaller of which is she and her husband. Certainly, there are husbands who are the primary caretakers of their children because their wives are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually absent. This article is about moms, though, because this reality creates a situation with consequences that is easy to turn a blind eye to.
When a woman finds herself lacking her husband’s attention and care with the children, we are familiar with the fact that she can turn to her son, inviting him in some measure to take his dad’s place. This is a situation that creates mama’s boys. However, some moms turn even more easily to a daughter to take dad’s place. This isn’t something that raises red flags as it appears to just be about the girls hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, and bonding.
When a mom turns to her daughter to take dad’s place, it looks like the two of them being more like friends and confidants than mother and daughter. It is seductive for everyone involved. Mom has a “friend” available right there at home. Daughter is treated like an adult. Nothing is quite as seductive for a child as being drawn into a parent’s confidence. Dad has the pressure to be present taken off his shoulders.
However, this situation is also a set up for serious strife. Whenever mom has to show up as parent, guardian, and disciplinarian with her daughter, the daughter resents it like nobody’s business. She feels betrayed that the woman who treats her like a girlfriend can turn around and come down hard on her, setting limits that make her feel like a child.
Depending on the dynamics between these kinds of mothers and daughters, the daughters can be compliant and polite or condescending and insulting. Sometimes the friendship connection born of an absent father works for the mother and daughter and sometimes it doesn’t.
There are future results for both women that should give a mom with an absent husband pause, reconsidering the short term benefits of encouraging her daughter to take his place. For the daughter, she develops a false sense of superiority, both to men and women. At the same time, she experiences resentment over losing her youth, having to be the adult. Taking dad’s place, regardless of how close she is to mom, creates a daddy’s girl who doesn’t respect men very much. There is confusion over her role in future romantic relationships. Having been mom’s “little man,” she doesn’t know how to hold the feminine space in a relationship, competing with men in unhealthy ways instead.
A daughter who took dad’s place with mom grows up to be disrespectful of both herself and her future husband, creating an inability to sustain intimacy with him. Such a woman has a hard time being receptive to intimacy. It is a set up for a future filled with a series of monogamous relationships as one man after another leaves her. She tends to see the world from the place of victim, hindering her ability to create well in other areas of her life. And in the worst case scenario, this daughter never has a lasting relationship outside the one she has with her mother.
A mother who invites her daughter to take her husband’s place loses respect for herself. The inability to hold his attention and extending the invitation to her daughter to take his place makes her feel like less of a woman. Especially if she is single, the relationship with her daughter can make her unavailable for the love of a man. In asking her daughter to help her in this way, she and the girl essentially reverse roles. Inviting the daughter to take on a role above her years, she’s asking for a rescue as if she’s the daughter, which puts the daughter in the role of mother.
This mother experiences guilt and resentment. The life state of feeling stuck between her own mother and her daughter becomes exaggerated as she loses a strong sense of self and having her own life. She too sees the world from the place of victim. There’s no space for a man to enter mom’s life if she is single or for her husband to re-enter her life if she is married. Ironically, although she has locked the man out, her disrespect of men grows as they lose interest due to her lack of receptivity. This creates an inability in the mother for her to sustain intimacy with a man.
It is a no win situation for everyone involved. Just as subtly as the situation presents itself, it’s the subtle things that can undo it and make a difference for you and your daughter.
First of all, make a list of things that you know are inappropriate to confide in your daughter and commit that list to your adult girlfriends. If you are married, you can determine which subjects belong to you and your husband. If you have become isolated, get out there and develop some good female friends. Your children are growing and preparing to come into their own as young adults. It’s time for you to have a posse of friends again!
Secondly, encourage your daughter to share her life with you. Place yourself in the space of her confidant as her mother. Let there be some mystery between you. You have a lot of age and wisdom. You also were never her age in the twenty-first century. Let her have her life, her experiences, her heartbreaks, and joy.
Allow your daughter and her father to have their own relationship. If you find yourself running interference between them, back off that task. Give them time and space to work out what it means to be father and daughter as she comes into her own as a young adult.
If possible, let your home be the house at which your children’s friends are free to hang out. You’ll be “cool” yet respected. As the guardian of their safe space, your role as parent is reinforced and appreciated.
By reinforcing your role as loving parent, you teach your daughter to respect those who came before her, those who have had different life experiences from her. You teach her that there are conversations and experiences that husbands and wives have to which the children are not privy. You also teach her to respect herself by maintaining your own self respect. These things help her develop her natural ability to trust others which directly impacts her future intimacy with her own husband.
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