When Mothers Turn to Their Adolescent Daughters: Predicting Daughters' Vulnerability to Negative Adjustment Outcomes*

• Author: Stephanie L. Jacobs,Meghan Raymond,Susan Silverberg Koerner
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2000.00301.x
• Published date: 01 July 2000
• Date: 01 July 2000

2000, Vol. 49, No. 3 301

When Mothers Turn to Their Adolescent Daughters:

Predicting Daughters’ Vulnerability to Negative

Adjustment Outcomes*

Susan Silverberg Koerner,** Stephanie L. Jacobs, and Meghan Raymond

Mother-to-daughter disclosure regarding two sensitive topic areas—financial concerns and complaints/anger toward the ex-husband (the

adolescent girl’s father)—was examined in a sample of 62 mother/adolescent-daughter dyads following the mother’s divorce. Most mothers

in the current sample have disclosed to their daughters on these two topics, but with varying levels of detail and diverse motivations.

Daughter perceptions of maternal disclosure were associated with daughter psychological distress, regardless of daughter age.

*This research was supported by funds from the University of Arizona’sSmall Grants

Program, Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Agricultural ExperimentStation.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Miriam Linver, Sara Wallace, Sonia Cota-

Robles, Jennifer Reiner, Sarah Cox, Layla Crosby, Michelle Fanger, Amy Jordahl, Michael

Brodie, and Rhonda Massey. A version of this paper was presented at the biennialmeetings

of the Society for Research on Adolescence, San Diego, CA, February 1998.

**Address correspondence to: Susan Silverberg Koerner, Ph.D., Division of Family

Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0033; e-mail: ssilver@ag.arizona.edu

Key Words: adjustment, adolescence, boundaries, disclosure, divorce, mother-daughter re-

lationships.

(Family Relations, 2000, 49, 301–309)

One of the major challenges that families struggle with

following divorce is the re-negotiation of family bound-

aries (Emery & Dillon, 1994). Family boundaries, a cen-

tral concept from family systems theory, are the implicit and

explicit rules that regulate interaction among family members

(Minuchin, 1974). Boundaries can be categorized into two kinds:

boundaries of intimacy (rules of closeness) and boundaries of

power (rules of authority/influence).

According to Emery, a leading scholar in the field of divorce

and children’s well-being, boundaries between family members

are difficult to renegotiate following marital separation because

of uncertain normative expectations, intense and painful emo-

tions, and loyalty dilemmas (Emery & Dillon, 1994). Violation

of typical intergenerational intimacy boundaries is thought to

occur when parents rely on their children as confidantes, by shar-

ing or disclosing to their children personal worries, concerns,

and complaints. That is, violation of intimacy boundaries is

thought to occur when the parent-child relationship reflects a

level of openness typically reserved for close adult-adult rela-

tionships (e.g., spousal relationships, adult friendships).

Although a good deal of clinical and case study work has

focused on the phenomenon of boundary violation between di-

vorced mothers and their adolescent children, few systematic

non-clinical research efforts have done so. This gap in the lit-

erature is rather surprising, not only because case studies have

shown that following divorce mothers may turn to their adoles-

cents for intimacy and emotional sustenance (e.g., Bassoff, 1988;

Glenwick & Mowrey, 1986; Weiss, 1975, 1979b), but also be-

cause several family theories—most strikingly, structural family

systems theory—have maintained that the violation of intimacy

boundaries places teenagers in a vulnerable position with respect

to emotional well-being and behavioral adjustment (Bowen,

1978; Lopez, Campbell, & Watkins, 1988; Minuchin, 1974; Tey-

ber, 1983; Weltner, 1982). Specifically, listening to parental dis-

closures about sensitive topics (e.g., financial concerns) may lead

adolescents to worry not only about their family’s situation, but

also about their parent’s well-being. Adolescents may feel bur-

dened or overwhelmed. As a result, they may experience symp-

toms of psychological distress (e.g., depression, anxiety) or en-

gage in problem behavior (e.g., drug use, anti-social behavior).

Mother-to-Adolescent Disclosure After Divorce

The phenomenon of divorced mothers enlisting their ado-

lescent daughters as confidantes has been studied almost exclu-

sively via clinical and case studies (e.g., Bassoff, 1988; Glen-

wick & Mowrey, 1986; Weiss, 1975, 1979b). Thosedataprovide

evidence that many divorced mothers, at least in these selective

samples, do indeed breach typical generational boundaries by

disclosing their personal worries and difficulties to their daugh-

ters. Very little is known, however, about the extent to which

divorced mothers in the more general population engage in such

disclosure with their adolescent daughters. In an important ex-

ception, Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch’s (1996) study of

divorced families in northern California revealed a fair amount

of confiding on the part of parents to their adolescents. In ad-

dition, the study found that mothers who had primary custody

of their youngsters were more likely than fathers who had pri-

mary custody to confide in their adolescents, especially if the

adolescent was a daughter. Nonetheless, because Buchannet al.’s

confiding construct was measured with only one global survey

item, little was revealed about the nature, content, and context

of the parent-to-adolescent disclosures. Without such data, we

are left with an imprecise picture of parent-to-adolescent disclo-

sure, and know nothing about the specific topics of disclosure,

the degree of detail offered in disclosures, or the motivations for

disclosures.

Another exception to this research lacuna is the recent work

of Dolgin (1996), that documented parental self-disclosure to

college freshmen sons and daughters (M518.4 years). Overall,

Dolgin found a fairly high level of parent-to-child disclosure

over a range of topics that varied in level of intimacy (e.g., career

plans, financial concerns, romantic involvements). In addition,

Dolgin’s study indicated that parents who had been divorced re-

ported somewhat more disclosure to their children than did par-

ents in continuously intact families. Notably, this differencewas

due largely to a greater likelihood of disclosure about two topics

of particular salience to divorced adults—romantic involvements

and lifestyle changes. Although Dolgin’s work provides valuable

information on parent-to-child disclosure, it is somewhat limited

with respect to its bearing on our understanding of patterns of

disclosure from mothers to adolescent daughters in the wake of

a divorce.