In developing the Mother-Daughter Project, we draw upon myriad sources of knowledge about women and girls. First, we draw upon our own experiences as mothers of daughters and participant-observers in mothers-only and mother-daughter groups in the Mother-Daughter Project for the last eleven years. Secondly, we draw on experiences speaking with women and girls in our professional capacities as teachers, community organizers and activists, and psychotherapists. Some our particular expertise includes: Erin Berard has been teaching elementary school children for twenty years as well as working with children and mothers as a family liaison for a domestic violence shelter and for a family outreach program for an adolescents with mental health needs. Renée Schultz, MA, has been a marriage and family therapist for over 25 years. SuEllen Hamkins, MD was from 1992 until 2004 the psychiatrist at Smith College where she personally consulted with over a thousand women ages 16-22, as well as consulting at a community mental health clinic in which she worked with women of all ages and all walks of life. She is now in private practice, specializing in women's mental health. Third, we draw on conversations with women, girls and mothers from Chicago to Oaxaca, Mexico to Adelaide, Australia to Hong Kong and back to western Massachusetts as we have presented talks and workshops about the Mother-Daughter Project around the world. Our fourth source of knowledge and information is research and writing about women, girls, teens and mothers.
In 1997, a group of mothers of young girls in western Massachusetts gathered to address the challenges of mothering adolescent daughters in today's world. Among us were a family therapist, a high school guidance counselor, a psychiatrist, three teachers, a community organizer, a health professional, and an artist. We were determined to come up with a plan that would enable our girls to thrive through adolescence, that would help us to remain close and connected with them, and that would support us as mothers and as women.
The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers And Daughters Can Band Together, Beat The Odds, And Thrive
DOWNLOAD: https://tinourl.com/2vF9RB
We began by reading Mother-Daughter Revolution (1993) by Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malavé, a groundbreaking book that encourages women to join with each other in mothering their daughters while challenging the common expectation of mother-daughter separation. Starting with monthly mothers-only discussions, we explored our own experiences of adolescence and our relationships with our mothers, and brainstormed ways we could stay close to our daughters as we nurtured them - and ourselves - through their teen years.
Together we came up with the plan of creating a small, supportive community - an extended family of committed mothers and their daughters-in which mother-daughter connection was the norm. Banding with our daughters, we created two ongoing mother-daughter groups that met regularly, grouping girls of similar ages. We developed playful but powerfully effective activities that fortified our girls' self-esteem as they explored key issues with us, such as girls' friendships and puberty when they were young, and more challenging subjects, such as body image, drugs, sexuality, and violence against women, over time. As they matured, we marveled at the strength and confidence with which they thrived through adolescence, and found that our groups did indeed provide an antidote to the perils of teen culture. We also learned that it was possible for mothers to have warm and loving relationships with our teen daughters. Equally important, our mothers-only group offered us the sustenance we needed as mothers to navigate our daughters' adolescence with integrity and grace. Five years after we started, when two of the original mothers' younger daughters reached age six, we started a third mother-daughter group, which named themselves the Butterflies, inviting in more mothers and their six and seven year-old-daughters.
One of our original goals was to share any ideas we discovered that might be helpful to others. Starting in 2002, we, SuEllen Hamkins and Renée Schultz, two of the founding mothers, have been writing and presenting workshops to mothers, psychotherapists and other professionals about The Mother-Daughter Project, first in the U.S., then around the world. Mothers have been thrilled to hear that they can stay close with their daughters and get the support they need to do so, and mother-daughter groups have sprung up all over the world. Women asked us to write a book about the Project so that they can have more support and guidance, and so, with the blessing of the other mothers and girls in our group, we did: The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through Adolescence, published by Penguin in 2007.
As our daughters reach adulthood, we are turning more of our energies toward helping other mothers and daughters connect with each other and create the communities in which they can thrive. If you would like to share your story of mutual mother-daughter thriving or what your mother-daughter group is up to, we would love to hear it!
As their daughters matured, the mothers marveled at the strength and confidence with which the girls thrived through adolescence. The Project had succeeded in creating a haven from the many perils of teen culture. Equally important, it helped the mothers navigate their own fears and concerns about adolescence with integrity and grace.
-- Other mothers and daughters are key to connection. For fear of seeming "babyish," your 13-year-old might not want go to the movies with just you, but she'll go with a friend, her friend's mother and you. It's much easier for mothers to forge close relationships with teenage daughters when they band together with a group of mothers and girls who value the same thing.
Yes! When our mom-daughter group began, I barely knew the other women, most of whom I was meeting for the first time! We came from different walks of life and had different ideas about raising children, from how much to help with homework to how much freedom to give a 15-year-old. What we shared was a desire to support one another in the hard work of mothering, to help our daughters thrive, and to nurture mother-daughter bonds. If the women in your group share these core values, then your group is on its way to success. Remember, this group is for you. It should meet your needs and fit your life.
One way to do this might be a Mother-Daughter Club, in which daughters share something they love about American culture with their mothers, like taking them to an amusement park, alternating with mothers sharing something they value about their culture, like how to properly cook pho. As the group gets to know one another, moms and daughters can investigate similarities and differences between American culture and the mothers' native cultures in terms of family, individuality, privacy, respect and so on. Questions could include: How do parents show their love for their children in each culture? What are the responsibilities of a daughter in each culture? What are the expectations for women? Going beyond the public aspects of culture like food, language and music to understand the nuances of "deep culture" greatly enriches mother-daughter understanding.
SuEllen Hamkins, MD, is a mother of two and coauthor of The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds and Thrive Through Adolescence. She has led workshops about mother-daughter and parent-child connection around the world, helping mothers and girls, parents and kids all thrive. In her work as a psychiatrist, SuEllen helps people cultivate their values and strength in the face of challenges. She lives with her family in western Massachusetts, and raising her two children has been the most thrilling and rewarding work of her life. 2ff7e9595c
Comments