Part 3. Mothers and Daughters.

Keywords

conflict, mothers, daughters, critical, rejected, criticisms, betrayed, father's role, let go.

Vocabulary

strain, nurture, onset, puberty, maternal, defuse, impetus.

A. You're going to hear a report on the relationships between mothers and daughters. In the report, three experts are introduced. Supply the missing information about the three people.
The second Sunday of May is officially designated Mother's Day here in the United States.
While Mother's Day is a happy occasion in most families, it is not happy in those where there's serious conflict between the mother and her children.
Some scholars believe relationships between mothers and daughters can be especially strained.
Lynn Davidman, professor of women's studies at Brown University in Rhode Island, was 13 when her mother died of cancer.
She has spent many years studying the immediate and longer-term impact of a mother's premature death on those she leaves behind.
The result of her research is a book titled Mother-loss.
Lynn Davidman says over the years, most of her samples, including herself, have constructed an idealized and culturally stereotyped view of their mothers.
Most of the people I interviewed told me that their mothers were the most perfect, the most wonderful, the most loving, nurturing people that could have ever lived.
Lynn Davidman says this is because people who lost their mothers during their early teens were old enough to remember her love and nurturing, but too young to experience some of the conflicts that come as children start growing up.
Clinical psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler who specializes in women and adolescent girls says mother-daughter conflicts start with the onset of the daughter's puberty.
She says at that age, daughters often become critical of their mothers.