<p>"To Close For Comfort" hit home with me. It's helpful. It's a new book and it's focus is on adult and college age mother/daughter relationships. The book is not full of case studies that have nothing in common with my situation. It has made me more aware of how and why my daughter can be so dependent when all she seems to want is to be independent.
Most of us are much closer to our daughters than we were with our mothers when we were their age and cell phones and texting really keep us tethered.</p>
<p>I haven’t read it, but it certainly sounds like an issue I am struggling with (i.e. how my daughter can be both so independent in the world and yet so dependent on me). It’s wearing me out, and I thought I had good boundaries, including plenty of 12-step experience in co-dependent issues. Her leaving for college seems to have really brought her dependence to a new level, at least in these first few weeks.</p>
<p>I believe a lot of that is the availability of communication from a distance. We have very poor cell phone reception in our area so our kids are not dependent on them. They know they need to figure it out themselves most of the time because we’re not just a phone call/text message/email away! </p>
<p>We do have a friend where the mom/daughter relationship is so close (and not in a good way, IMO) that they have connected to SKYPE and the daughter actually played SORRY! with the family the other night! Not in my house - a little separation please!</p>
<p>D1 and I have shopped online together the first year she went away. She used to ask me to take a lot of little adminstrative stuff for her, and since I was more familiar in doing it and she was very busy, I was happy to do it. She is now in her 3rd year and 7000 miles away. I have noticed whenever I reminded her to do something, she’s already had it taken care of. She no longer consult me on a lot of “relationship” issues because she now has a boyfriend. We are a lot closer than my mother and I, but I am not really worried about it being unhealthy. </p>
<p>I think the first year of college is the hardest because it is a lot for them to handle and they will tend to turn to who they are closest. Over time, frequency of calls will decrease as they become more comfortable with their new independence.</p>
<p>Hmm, I’m 42 and I was always extremely close to my mother. I called her every day from college, sometimes more than once a day. I also called my grandma almost every day from college too. I am not exactly sure what is wrong with being close to family.</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom, I’m with you. I am close to my daughters but they are still independent, confident young women – even if we do talk every day.</p>
<p>It was interesting to read about why our daughters remain closer to us then previous generations. It has a lot to do with the fact that we mothers are sharing a lot of the same music and movies. We work out our taste in shoes and handbags often overlap making it fun to shop with our daughters. Mothers and daughters today have more overlapping interests which give us more to talk about on the cell phones. Also we can talk about sex more easily than our mothers could (and relate). More of us are in the work force so we can discuss work issues more knowledgeably. In short we have a smaller generation gap with our daughters. What we have to avoid is being our daughters best friends and sometimes that’s not easy.</p>
<p>Not that I am disagreeing with you – I am not, nor do I try to be, my daughter’s “best friend” --but why exactly does that have to be avoided?</p>
<p>wow… I don’t relate at all… I feel my daughter pretty much shut me out of her life at around age 14 – recently we have been a lot closer (she’s now 21) - talking much more, and I am really enjoying the chance to be my daughter’s “best friend” at a distance, for awhile. My daughter always has been very active and outgoing, so in high school I pretty much saw her tail end as she was on the way out the door – then she had a boyfriend and her world revolved around him. The occasion for our closeness is partly that she finally broke up with the long-term boyfriend - she’s a senior in college and many of her closest friends at school have already graduated - and she’s living alone in a studio apartment, so no distractions in the evening with roommates. I’m hoping that we have a chance to keep our new found friendship, especially as our family dynamic is changing and growing in other ways.</p>
<p>Since I still have a teen D, I find the degree of closeness ebbs and flows, and goes through phases. I do agree with others that the generation gap probably isn’t as large as it was previously. </p>
<p>I also have a feeling that my D and I’s close phases are when I back off and let her be her independent self. She’s has always- since she was very little- been a very very independent kind of person. And I know can be frustrating to her trying to “overparent” her on things that she really doesn’t need my help or advice or judgment on. She’s always shown pretty mature judgment, she’s a very good kid, and really well adjusted too…so I’m not sure why I keep thinking she needs me so much. So my biggest challenge is backing off and “letting her be”. And when I am in the right mindset about that, I find our relationship is so much closer.</p>