Why Mother Does Not Always Know Best

Now that I’m 87 and in the last lap of my life, I’m finally learning how to keep peace with my three adult daughters.

The more conversations I’ve had over the years with mothers of adult daughters — especially when it comes to topics of clothing, hair, weight or how they handle household chores — the more I’ve come to understand why even the simplest “chat” can create an emotional explosion. A mother’s simple suggestion — if you haven’t learned already — can abruptly end what seemed like a pleasant conversation.

My neighbor Francine, for example, told me how when speaking with her daughter, Brenda, she suggested the young woman take a raincoat to work. (The TV weatherman had predicted rain later that day.) Almost immediately, her daughter ended the conversation by saying “Gotta go,” and clicked off the cell phone. Francine was bewildered. “What did I say to anger her so?”

I raised this mother-daughter issue with communications expert Dr. Deborah Tannen, author of the bestselling You’re Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation.

“It would have been less confusing if Francine had realized it wasn’t the caring advice she gave (take a raincoat) that sent her daughter into a tailspin, but the criticism her daughter heard (‘She still thinks I am a stupid 5-year-old’),” she told me. “By implication,” said Tannen, “a suggestion is heard as a criticism. It implies that if you are telling your daughter to do something differently, then she must be doing something wrong.”

When her book was published in 2006, my daughters were in their mid-30s and I was at a loss about how to cope with my confusing conversations with them. (The guide, now tattered and torn, still sits on my night table, ready to be reread when needed.)

Tannen writes how past conversations with our grown daughters can affect how they hear present ones. They trigger memories of the power we exerted over them as they were growing up.

As she explains, if the daughter is working hard to be seen as a capable adult, no longer the little girl in need of a “mommy,” then her mom’s simple and caring suggestions, even something as seemingly innocuous as “taking a raincoat,” could serve as an irritant, rather than a caress.

And I have found that just by changing the way we speak to our daughters — being sensitive and softening our tone of voice — we can go a long way toward changing how our daughters will react to us.

Here is one scenario that Tannen evaluates:

Mother says: “I called you three days ago. You were taking a shower and you said you would call me back. Boy, what a water bill you must have!”

Daughter hears: “She is so needy. I wish she could understand I have enough on my plate without fulfilling her needs.”

In this scenario, Tannen explains, the mother thinks she veiled her frustration with humor, but it came through loud and clear because the daughter knows her mother wishes she would call more often. Instead of letting the frustration build, the mother should call back and say lightly, “You probably forgot to call back. Here’s why I called…”

When my friend Phyllis learned through the grapevine that her granddaughter was gay, she was terribly hurt that her daughter never told her. “Before I could tell you, Mom, I had to first accept the news myself,” the daughter later explained. “If you went bonkers, it would have been too difficult for me to handle.”