UNDERSTANDING MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS.

• Position: Research - Brief Article

Mother-daughter relationships are among the most complicated families experience. They often comprise many conflicting feelings, such as love, anger, worry, resentment, envy, and need. According to the Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource, this critical relationship changes as both mother and daughter age, and there are several ways to improve it along the way.

Karen Fingerman, author of Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: A Study of Mixed Emotions, says that each person's large investment in the other is the primary force that complicates relations between mothers and daughters. This investment carries with it much potential conflict, but nonetheless is a good thing. It means having someone who accepts you, no matter what, and wants what's best for you.

According to one of Fingerman's studies, mother-daughter relationships take on different characteristics at various stages of life. When daughters become young adults, the...