Mothers & Daughters

There’s something nobody really tells us about motherhood.

Love can be incredibly strong while relationships can still feel complicated at times. Both things can exist together. I found myself thinking about that recently while reflecting on my relationship with my oldest daughter.

The truth is, we have butted heads periodically over the years. Not because we didn’t love each other. Quite the opposite actually. When I really step back and look honestly at our relationship, I realize we have always been close in many ways. I'm sure she would say that herself. We may have approached life differently at times, but when it came to family, loyalty, kindness, integrity, and simply trying to do right by others, we were often far more alike than either of us realized, and I think that created a strong sense of closeness between us.

When she lived abroad in Australia, we still connected often . Later, when she moved to British Columbia, we talked every single day. There was never a lack of love between us. But closeness and friction can exist at the same time. I think many mothers and daughters quietly understand this. You can deeply love each other, rely on each other, talk constantly, and still clash emotionally at times. Especially when both people are strong-minded, passionate, sensitive, or simply wired differently.

And we are different.

Different personalities. Different communication styles. Different ways of handling stress. There were times when one simple conversation could somehow turn tense in under five minutes flat. Mothers and daughters have a special talent for finding each other’s emotional buttons without even trying. Sometimes I felt unheard. Sometimes she felt judged. Sometimes we both became defensive before the conversation even really started.

And if I’m being honest, our story also began with a very difficult start. Her birth was traumatic. The delivery itself was hard but what followed afterward was even harder. I ended up needing several surgeries after she was born and physically and emotionally, it took a huge toll on me. I did not experience postpartum depression and thankfully I did feel connected to her emotionally but the entire experience was still overwhelming in ways I probably didn’t fully process at the time.

People often assume bonding is either there or it isn’t. But sometimes love and exhaustion exist side by side. A mother can feel deeply connected to her child while also trying to recover physically, emotionally and mentally all at once. That was more my reality.

And then life happened. Because parenting doesn’t happen inside some calm little movie scene where everyone is emotionally regulated and folding laundry with soft music playing in the background. We raise children while juggling marriages, finances, schedules, responsibilities, caregiving, exhaustion, appointments, overflowing hampers, grocery lists and trying to remember why we walked into the kitchen in the first place.

Fun Fact:  Studies continue to show that women still carry the majority of emotional labour and household management in the home. Most moms reading this probably didn’t need a research study to confirm that one.

Life gets busy. Stress piles up. People get tired. And sometimes even good relationships feel strained under the weight of everyday life. Looking back now, I can also admit something else honestly. There were likely times I subconsciously wanted my daughter to respond more like me, think more like me, handle things more like me. Most parents probably do this at some point. Not because we want our children to become copies of us but because familiar feels easier. We have lived through certain mistakes, learned hard lessons, figured out what worked for us and naturally want to spare our children some of the grief that came with learning those lessons the hard way.

At the same time, life changes. Generations change. The world changes. What worked for us may not always be the best way now, or the only way. When our children see life differently than we do, it can create tension neither side fully understands at the time. But life has a funny way of softening edges. Especially when two people stop trying to win and start trying to understand one another.

What’s beautiful and honestly something I never fully expected years ago, is that my daughter and I have now found ourselves reconnecting in a much deeper way through the work we both care about.

Somewhere between conversations, shared experiences, advocacy, helping others, worries, frustrations, and hopes for the future, we started seeing each other differently. Not just as mother and daughter. But as two women trying to do their best. Two women carrying stress differently. Two women who care deeply. Two women who actually have far more in common than either of us realized years ago. And now, watching her become a mother herself has brought us to yet another level of understanding.

There’s something profound that happens when your daughter becomes a mom. The conversations change. There’s a deeper empathy that quietly enters the relationship.

Certain things no longer need explaining because she feels them now herself. The worry. The mental load. The fierce love. The exhaustion. The constant wondering if we’re doing enough.

Motherhood has softened parts of our relationship in unexpected ways. Not because either one of us suddenly became perfect but because life has a way of widening perspective as we grow older. We understand each other differently now. More woman to woman. More mother to mother. And honestly, it feels really beautiful to arrive here together.

That doesn’t mean we suddenly became one of those perfectly synchronized mother-daughter duos who finish each other’s sentences while baking muffins in matching sweaters. Let’s stay realistic here. We still frustrate each other sometimes. We still see situations differently. But there’s more grace now. More patience. More awareness of each other’s hearts underneath the reactions. And maybe that’s what growth in relationships really looks like. Not perfection. Just understanding each other a little better over time.

I think many mothers quietly carry guilt over the parts of parenting they wish they handled differently. And many daughters quietly carry hurt over moments they felt misunderstood. But relationships are living things. They evolve. The relationship we have with our children at 7 will look completely different by 27 or 32. Tension today does not mean distance forever. Some relationships need maturity, perspective, healing, shared experiences, or simply time before they fully settle into themselves. And maybe that’s one of the most hopeful parts of getting older. We stop needing people to be exactly like us in order to love them well. We begin appreciating them for who they actually are.

Sometimes the relationships that challenge us the most end up becoming the ones that teach us the most too. And maybe that’s the part nobody tells us when we first become mothers.

Love is instant.

Understanding sometimes takes a little longer.