Mothers and Daughters. A Complicated Relationship, Advice on How to Improve It.

The relationship between mothers and daughters is quite often hard to pin down, it's a relationship worth fighting for though, in my opinion. I have two beautiful, kind and talented daughters. I’m proud of them, yet I sometimes find myself envying them. Does that make me a terrible mother? I envy them their youthful looks, their smooth skin as opposed to my wrinkled one.

I envy them their freedom of movement. The last time I was that flexible I was in my twenties. I envy the fact that they can scrape their hair back into a simple ponytail, throw on a pair of jeans, a plain shirt and a pair of flip flops and look amazing. I could spend all day getting ready to go out and still not look half as good.

I want to look nice for them, I don’t want to feel that I let them down somehow, not that I think for a moment that that’s what’s going through their minds every time they see me. I’d like to think they’d tell me if I looked a wreck, actually, they have - kind of. Not in those words, of course, I’ve raised them to be a lot more tactful than that. It’s just that they make looking good look effortless and I guess at their age it is. Although, I don’t remember it being that easy when I was young.

I envy them their lifestyle too, they can pretty much do as they please. When I was my eldest daughtersage I was married with a baby - her, in fact. She isn’t even in a relationship, doesn’t feel under any pressure to be in one. I remember my own mother and her increasing despair as I entered my twenties as a single woman. It’s amazing how much things can change in a generation. For the better, in my opinion.

I wish I had taken more time to explore being me, not as a daughter, wife and mother, just as me. I look at my daughters today and see two young women who know who they are. They are confident, assured, self reliant. They don’t need a man to validate them, perhaps, they never will. They have goals, they know where they would like their lives to lead, but they don’t feel the need to hurry to get there. That’s another thing I envy them, time.

I feel that I am not only their mother but a friend also. Not a thing I ever felt about my relationship with my own mother. I would never have flopped down on her bed after an evening out to tell her about it. My daughters do that and it makes me feel good inside. Not that they tell me all their secrets, I wouldn’t want them too. I have enough grey hairs now, thank you very much. But the fact that they feel able to tell me any is amazing enough for me.

Hot guy list.

Today my girls were messing around together and they asked me if I wanted to add anyone to their list of hot guys from TV. I did and it turns out my choices were already on the list. I can’t imagine even telling my mother that I thought a man was hot, let alone it being someone she might fancy too!

I like to think that I am in some small way responsible for my daughters being who they are today but I admit that the larger responsibility lies in the way society has progressed as a whole. Times have changed. I have often heard people say that they wouldn’t want to swap places with their kids, that they wouldn’t want to go through the teenage years again for anything. I would, in fact I would jump at the chance to live those years again, but only if I can live them now in my daughters time.

I know that I don't have a perfect relationship with my daughters, far from it, we fight - often but not about anything serious.When all is said and done, any relationship worth its salt is worth fighting over.