Ever wondered why mother-daughter relationships are so complex yet crucial for development? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Hilary Mae, a former family therapist who now dedicates her expertise to unraveling the intricate dynamics of these bonds. Hilary's journey from general family therapy to focusing exclusively on the mother-daughter connection is both inspiring and eye-opening. Through her professional experiences, she recognized a recurring disconnect between moms and their teenage daughters, compelling her to dive deeper into these unique relationships.
Gain practical parenting tips as Hilary shares transformative advice for mothers navigating the turbulent tween years. Learn about the power of listening without unsolicited advice, a simple yet profound technique that fosters emotional awareness and strengthens bonds with 12-year-old daughters. Hilary also emphasizes the importance of teaching emotional literacy from a young age, offering insights on tools like books and flashcards that can empower children to safely express their feelings. By promoting independence and self-confidence, mothers can create a nurturing environment where daughters feel truly heard and understood.
In addition, Hilary sheds light on the challenges faced by mothers who have lost their own mothers, providing strategies for honoring their legacy while breaking unhealthy patterns. Whether you're a biological mother or a stepmother, this episode offers valuable advice on building supportive relationships without overstepping boundaries. And for those moments when motherhood feels overwhelming, Hilary highlights the critical importance of accessing expert resources. Tune in to explore how intentionality, open communication, and a commitment to self-care can make all the difference in nurturing strong, healthy mother-daughter relationships.
Ever wondered why mother-daughter relationships are so complex yet crucial for development? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Hilary Mae, a former family therapist who now dedicates her expertise to unraveling the intricate dynamics of these bonds. Hilary's journey from general family therapy to focusing exclusively on the mother-daughter connection is both inspiring and eye-opening. Through her professional experiences, she recognized a recurring disconnect between moms and their teenage daughters, compelling her to dive deeper into these unique relationships.
Gain practical parenting tips as Hilary shares transformative advice for mothers navigating the turbulent tween years. Learn about the power of listening without unsolicited advice, a simple yet profound technique that fosters emotional awareness and strengthens bonds with 12-year-old daughters. Hilary also emphasizes the importance of teaching emotional literacy from a young age, offering insights on tools like books and flashcards that can empower children to safely express their feelings. By promoting independence and self-confidence, mothers can create a nurturing environment where daughters feel truly heard and understood.
In addition, Hilary sheds light on the challenges faced by mothers who have lost their own mothers, providing strategies for honoring their legacy while breaking unhealthy patterns. Whether you're a biological mother or a stepmother, this episode offers valuable advice on building supportive relationships without overstepping boundaries. And for those moments when motherhood feels overwhelming, Hilary highlights the critical importance of accessing expert resources. Tune in to explore how intentionality, open communication, and a commitment to self-care can make all the difference in nurturing strong, healthy mother-daughter relationships.
Welcome to the SJ Child Show, where a little bit of knowledge can turn fear into understanding.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:Hi and thank you for joining the SG Child Show today. I'm really excited to meet with Hilary May and hopefully that's all pronunciated correctly as it looks. It's really nice to meet you Today. We are going to have a really beautiful discussion and, like you had mentioned before, the complexities of relationships in general, but then when we get into those specific roles of relationships and, of course, the kind of intentions we put into them as humans and especially as parents, I think is so important, yeah, so welcome. Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat about the mother-daughter relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be really great and I have two daughters personally, so I and they couldn't be vastly different from one another, which then, of course, you have to learn how to have a whole nother relationship and boundaries and all of the things within those. So, yeah, I think it'll be um really enlightening and informative and excited to to get into this. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you here and kind of how you got started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So I'm a mother. I have a nine-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son. I'm obviously a daughter and I have two sisters, so I feel like there's a lot of mother-daughter relationships around me.
Speaker 1:My professional background is that I was a family therapist for almost 15 years.
Speaker 1:About six years ago I started specializing in teen girls.
Speaker 1:I had always really connected with them and enjoyed working with them, so I changed my practice so that it was just teen girls and in doing this I saw a dynamic between mothers and daughters over and over every day of the week, because 95% of the time moms are bringing their daughters to therapy and daughters didn't want them in the room, they didn't want them to be part of the conversation, they didn't want to let them in on their life.
Speaker 1:And I felt a little bit like I'm replacing this mom, like this mom should be the one having this conversation and getting to know what's happening in their daughter's life like they wanted to. And even as a trained family therapist, I did never learned anything about the mother daughter relationship. So I spent a lot of time researching and learning what happens between mothers and daughters and took that back to my practice and decided I'm just working with the mother-daughter relationship because there aren't enough people doing it and that relationship tends to be treated like any other family relationship and it's very specific to them being women and their experience as women and girls in the world. So that's what I focus on now, and I do that online and in person.
Speaker 2:That's so nice. The online space is, you know, the. Obviously, the era that we had to go through was not pleasant to have to be forced to go online. It also opened up a lot of opportunities for people to seek out new ways that they could practice or that they could get help and that they could access services and things.
Speaker 2:So I think that it's really nice that there's that availability for people, especially in relationships or maybe families that have, you know, multiple kids or multiple that it's so hard to sometimes say, okay, I have to take one kid, now what happens with the rest of them? What do we do with these?
Speaker 1:kids. They sit in the waiting room.
Speaker 2:What do they do? Like that's really difficult. I know that. You know I have an autistic son and I have to take him with me to places sometimes and he's 14. It's not like he's three and I could put him down on the floor with a thing you know and stuff. So it gets to be some working around things for sure. How do you, or when let's start off with this when do you think and when is it important for a mother-daughter relationship to really like begin? Obviously there's birth, but when do when should we start and how should we start to build that? And, like you know, what's the kind of the bones of that relationship?
Speaker 1:look like yeah, so you're absolutely right. The relationship starts at birth, right when that daughter's born, and what I see happen is and I work with mothers and daughters of all ages, so I might work with, you know, a daughter in her 40s and we we have this girl right, and we are like these are the things I'm going to do differently, these are the things I'm going to pull from that my mom did with me and then these are the things I'm changing, that I don't want to continue with my daughter, right, but typically, if we haven't processed those patterns that we don't want to repeat and understand exactly how to not repeat them, we tend to do it anyway and I always say that. You know, we all enter motherhood with the best intentions, like.
Speaker 1:None of us are like I'm just going to wing it, we'll see what happens right Like no, we want to get it right and we want to do well and we don't always know how to do that. We're kind of taught that it's just natural Like moms are, you know, natural nurturers and we know how to do this right. But that's not true, especially if we didn't learn it and we're attempting to do the opposite of what we saw our mom do our whole life. So I think really that journey can start before you become a mom, by healing your own relationship, or understanding your own relationship with your mom and being really intentional about the patterns you're going to break with your daughter, because that part is that part is huge. So that would be ideally what women do. I typically end up working with clients once they're in a situation where their daughters push them away in some way, whether that's an adolescence or as an adult daughter.
Speaker 2:That's so tricky too, because it is. It is in that moment, it's in those kind of crisis moments that we're seeking for help and we're not looking to get a relationship on track when we don't think it's off track Right, and then something happens and we're like, oh my gosh, we need to go find out how we get help. That's hard too. It's hard to find. I'm sure that you're rare in your what you're doing, because you know we kind of feel like we can just, you know, go to our doctors or go to our psychologist or something. But specializing in really just focusing on that commitments of those relationships of a mother and daughter, is so, so niche and rare and special. I think that there is so much that can be gained if women look into that and, you know, try to get that. How can we start setting up things maybe before we get into crisis, so that we're not scrambling at that moment to go try to find help?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know many of us, when we become moms, we realize something needs to change with our own mother. We start, you know, not only wanting to change things for our daughter but thinking like, oh, now I need to have more boundaries with my mom or she's not getting. You know what I need. And now that I'm a mother and she's a grandmother, I think it really begins with you taking a look at that relationship with your own mom. And I actually did that work with my mom.
Speaker 1:Once I started learning about this. I decided, you know, I want to do better for my daughter and some of that begins with me healing with my mom, so not identifying there's a mother wound there and letting that grow and creating boundaries and distance Like no, I want to have hard conversations with my mom and understand what her life was like, what was her experience in our relationship, and heal. You know what felt broken between the two of us. So I think that's a really great place to start, because I see so many young mothers young, as in, mothers of young children that as they're raising their children, they start to push their mother away, versus let her in and let her, help her and let her, support her and have a voice to say this is what I need from you, mom. You know, I know I didn't have that voice when I had my daughter, and there's so much I would have done differently if I knew that I could have that and my mom and I had the kind of communication where she could really hear me. So that's really important.
Speaker 1:Work to me is not even doing the work on your own, it's inviting your mom into the conversation and saying, hey, I'm about to have a baby. Yeah, let's you and I have some sessions together to understand how we can navigate that. And that's actually when I see a lot of my clients. When they're entering a new stage in their relationship, like the daughter's getting married, the daughter's just gone to college, or she has a new partner, they've just had a baby those are the times when we sort of need to recalibrate our mother-daughter relationship, and so those are great times to get some support before you enter the next stage.
Speaker 2:You know, you said something I think is so vital and important and that is her being able to hear you. And what a such an impactful thing to say and to really understand because, yes, we can go to our moms or, you know, our daughters can come to us, but are we and are they taking the time to really listen? And not listen to respond, because that's not real listening, but listening to hear and then take, being able to really, you know, resonate on what's being said and then decide strategy on moving forward. I think that that's a big big thing that maybe goes right over their heads, right or right over anybody, that's just not in the mindset or in maybe their space with their own self to sit in and be thoughtfully listening and, you know, actively listening so important, and I think that we learn that as we go down in all of these relationships.
Speaker 2:It took me a long time to have that understanding. I think that there still doesn't exist in many conversations that I have with my own mom and that I, you know, I'm still not being heard and being listened to and it's just almost like a defense that she's just ready to argue or say you know something else and and that can be really tricky and you know, having a 24-year-old and a 12-year-old, I have a huge, huge level and like there's so much and there's so much difference, and not only that, there's so much growth that has happened between the first and the second, and now I see with I mean what, it's probably doesn't look like a blessing to have that space gap.
Speaker 2:My first one was a stepdaughter, so there's a lots of different types of learning in that kind of relationship when I had my own daughter, you know, and I had already been parenting for 14 years and so I kind of had this access to say, okay, I see how some of these things may not have worked, and they're the things that I took with me from my own childhood and reenacted right. And there were all these things that I then had to come to terms with and say, nope, this isn't right, this isn't working. How do moms learn to listen? How do we like face that head?
Speaker 1:on.
Speaker 2:Like what are the words or sentences we can say?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, true.
Speaker 1:There's so much there I want to respond to. It's so great. It's just on point, because it's absolutely like the biggest breakdown between mothers and daughters is the communication. And Roshka Hasseldee, one of my mentors. She has an equation for the mother daughter relationship and she says daughters being heard and being understood equals feeling loved for them, and it's like as simple and as complicated as that.
Speaker 1:We just want to be heard by our mothers and I talk a lot about how daughters are just screaming to be heard, and I was one of them. It's like you know, maybe if I get louder, if I'm literally screaming, you will hear how important this is to me that you get it. And so many women feel like my mom will just never listen. She just can't. It's who she is. But really what's most likely happening is you know that mother isn't feeling heard herself and so she's also screaming to feel heard. Like what? How can I listen to you when no one's listening to me? Right, how, how can I pour into you if no one's pouring into me? And so when mothers aren't getting their needs met by their partner, by their friends, by their own mother and father, they're then looking to their daughters, the other nurturer in the home to do that caring for them. Right, like you get it, you're the other female in the house you can give to me too, and that's absolutely not the way this goes, right? You know, as parents, we take care of our children always and forever, and so if we didn't get that from our own parents, or we're not, we tend to lean on our daughters, and that's too much for them. So a lot of what I teach mothers and daughters individually, and definitely together, is how to practice listening and understanding each other. Um, and it's very much like what you would do in couples.
Speaker 1:Therapy is like taking turns, like, okay, this is my perspective, this is my version of the story, right. And then they, you know, confirm that they heard it Right, and then they take turns, and then they get to the place where they talk about okay, what happens next, what do I need so this doesn't happen again, right? Um, it's a, it's a process and it's so important and both people have to be on board to understand. Like this is a better way of us communicating, because what's happening is we're both not feeling heard. If we're talking about a mom and a 12 year old daughter, that 12 year old, may not be showing up to counseling sessions and being patient enough to learn this process, right, she's just going to want it done for her, she's just going to want the change. And so then the mom is learning how, how do I really listen? How do I listen without giving advice, without solving the problem, making sure I validate how she feels, I let her know that I hear her, and she doesn't feel any shame or blame in my responses, like, oh, you could have handled that differently, right, it doesn't need to become a learning lesson.
Speaker 1:As daughters, we just want to be heard and understood, and so it really just requires the mom to listen. Uh, I'm constantly reminded of that with my daughter, right, and she's like, can you just listen to me? Like, yes, of course, yes, I could do that. Right, thank you for the reminder that I'm I'm getting off track. I'm wanting to heal this for you, so you don't have to struggle, so you know how to solve this in the future. We have a lot of wisdom to share, but our daughters want to grow into their own people and they learn so much by watching us, you know. So they don't, they don't want to hear the solutions they don't want to be told you know, this is how you handle this right. It's actually less work for moms to just listen and validate.
Speaker 2:Isn't that the truth? And sometimes, when we are that individual wanting to be heard, speaking about and being heard can help us solve our own problems. Sometimes, you know, most of the time we can work it out ourselves If we're, if we're allowed that space and feel safe and secure in that timeframe to say, oh wow, in talking about this, ding, ding, you know my, my own ideas are going off and now I have ideas of how to fix it. Um, Such good advice.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, it's actually it's actually what I would do as a therapist for teen girls. Like, much of what I teach moms is how to do what I did. Right. I maybe was the person they were coming to, but since I wanted moms to be that person, now I'm transferring those skills. Here's how you listen and I would.
Speaker 1:You know girls would do this. They come in after school and they'd share their, their drama from their week or whatever was going on, right? And then they sort of look at me as if like what do I do? And I would always put it back on them Like, what do you think? Like, how do you want to handle this situation? What do you think could happen? And a lot of times they'd be like I don't know, I have no clue what to do, you know. But then they would.
Speaker 1:If I would give them space and time to think about it and just pause, they would start throwing out ideas of what they wanted to do. Right, and that I what you were saying about how you just sort of sort through it and start to understand it. As you're talking about it, and as moms, we don't always give our daughters that space or invitation, right, like I trust you, you have ideas you can handle this right, like what do you think? What do you want to do? No, we just want to solve the problem and get to the next thing, right? So if we just give our daughters some space to learn how to do it on their own, they'll get there.
Speaker 2:And I, you know you said a totally another wonderful, impactful, amazing word trust.
Speaker 2:And when you are able to build that trust with a child, I see how amazing it can be, feel how amazing it can be, and I know how amazing it's not when it's not like that.
Speaker 2:So I think that when you have that contrast, you can really appreciate, when you've set up a relationship, that not only are you trusting that daughter and that relationship, but they're also trusting you. And I, oftentimes, you know, in real, in our relationship, we'll say like, well, you know if I could tell there's something being held back. Well, do you trust me, like you can trust, like I trust you, and I want you to know you can trust me with this too. And I'm reminding her of that because I think that having the relationship is great, but they're learning all of the pieces of the relationship and I think that reminding them what those look like, maybe those little like determination, like check marks or whatever, is important. Because even right now, you know, we're going through situations where maybe you know, emotions and hormones are mixing and sometimes it can be confusing and you're not sure what emotion am I really feeling.
Speaker 2:Am I really feeling this, but what does it really mean? And, oh, it stems from this completely different feeling over here you know just have been talking about within the last few days. So how, what is the best way, like when they're little, to start talking about those emotions and letting them feel safe to express them?
Speaker 1:I think letting them know that anything they say is welcome and okay, and, you know, working on our own reactions as parents to what they have to share so that they feel safe to come to us. I mean as far as when they're really little, like my kids, because I'm a therapist right, I mean they're babies and they'd have books about emotions. Yeah, you're learning. Learning how to label how they feel at a very early age is critical. Giving them that language, labeling it for them like oh you seem sad. Like, or asking, are you sad? And when I worked with kids there's some really great flashcards with feelings on them. Todd Parr has some really great children's books and he has these beautiful, bright flashcards and they would have like sad and then the opposite, feeling on the back, like happy, would be on the back.
Speaker 1:And I would have the kids at the beginning of each session, choose feelings from their week, identify those right. That's something you could do as a family is like choose some feelings at the dinner table how are you feeling today? But making them all welcome right, like, even though maybe anger is a feeling that's hard to manage as a parent and really tolerate, making it welcome for them to express that and that's okay, right, and we can move through that. So they all need to be accepted, and then that's how you teach your you know your kids how to move through those feelings. I think, also, as parents, when I'm clearly feeling something difficult and my kids know it I try to label it too. I'm angry, right. I'm frustrated, right. I'm feeling impatient in this traffic. You know whatever it is like. I'm labeling, right. I'm frustrated, right. I'm feeling impatient in this traffic. You know whatever it is like. I'm labeling it for myself too, to give them another example of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause you're all, they're always watching and they're always seeing it all, and I think that that's that's a really great way. And, yes, we're human and we're going to get caught up in our own emotions and our own mind and our my ADHD goes crazy, running from one room to the next, but at the same time, it's always um this really impertinent stage that we leave them. This like if they call out for you yeah, how, what do you need? You know, like I saw this message. This is so random.
Speaker 2:I saw this message from, like um, two older women that I used to know when I was growing up, so they're like my mom's age. But at one of the women said to the other you know, I I really love how you respond to your kids. Every time they say, hey, mom, can you help me, you say yeah, yeah, I'll be right there coming. Instead of what do you want? Come over here, I'm in the other room, you can walk over here and ask me. You know, like, really and I'm not saying you should be your um I'll run to their back and call, like you know, insanely, or anything but.
Speaker 2:I think that that her another woman come um complimenting on how nice is how you show up for your kids like that, how you let them know that they're the priority in the moment that they need you, and that's so special and important and I really I like I said it's kind of random, two old ladies talking, but I just thought it was so special that she would compliment her on that and and you know even now that she's like a great grandma. You know even now that she's like a great grandma, you know, and she's had all of these stages of motherhood, if you will. So, yeah, I think that that's something we can definitely, like you said, look to learn from. They're looking at us, they're learning. We have to be cognizant of all of the things that we're doing, yet still be human and make mistakes and then say this is a mistake I made, you know. Here's a lesson from you to learn from my mistakes, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, be able to apologize, be able to own it. I know my daughter is very good at holding up the mirror to me and showing me what it is that I'm doing. That's either hurting her or confusing her or whatever. And as a parent that could be really hard If we don't take accountability for what they're saying or take a look at that and think like, oh, am I doing that? Oh, that's not my intention at all. You know, and think like, oh, am I doing that? Oh, that's like not my intention at all, and really see it as a gift that they're pointing it out to you and they're not just internalizing it and keeping it to themselves and building resentment and distance.
Speaker 2:And you know, that's how that grows when daughters don't feel heard yeah, you know, this new era that we're in, like we're so lucky to be in a place where we are speaking about our feelings, where we're not shutting people down to do so, that we're allowing it to be a part and and realizing that's where we resolve and we can heal and fix things is in these conversations that some older generations are more happy to keep within themselves and to not bridge these, you know, gaps or anything like that, just to have them be what they are.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's really important because, just like you just said, kind of setting up that relationship when you are and taking accountability for the things that they're talking to you about, when you face your own mother and you're doing that process, that can be so difficult to say, um, you know I'm not coming to you to like make you feel hurt, but I need to heal from some things that might have happened, that now we need to change and move forward from big steps that you have to take. What about? What kind of advice would you give to a mom who's lost her mom and that doesn't have that space to heal and she has to just kind of learn to be a mother on her?
Speaker 2:own and what? Which way do you point them then?
Speaker 1:yeah, I, they can still do this work, um, but again, it wouldn't be focusing on the mother wound, it would be, um. I really believe in honoring our moms, um, because I believe that every mom is has given us something, um, and has set out with that intention to do their best. And they don't always know how to do it and, like you said, the older generations talked a lot less. Right, they internalize. Well, this is just the way it is. Many of us just accept this is how the mother-daughter relationship is. It's meant to be complicated and we're meant to have conflict and all the things we hear. Right, everybody's walking on eggshells with their mother or daughter. Right On the other end of the spectrum, women are coming to me and saying I can't tell anyone, I'm doing this because they all have perfect relationships. That's what we all think. Right, we're the, we're the only ones. So, um, I think you know doing the work and really understanding the history of women in your family, identifying the patterns.
Speaker 1:There are sometimes pieces we don't know when the women who came before us, or grandmothers or great grandmothers, didn't talk about their lives, right, and they were just sort of silent and did everything for everybody else and nobody really knew them as a human or a woman. Who was that woman? We don't know, right, she just served her family. It's important to understand, though. There's patterns you can put together, to start to put the pieces together and think about what am I, what's important for me to do differently, so I don't repeat those patterns with my daughter. You know, did we? Did we let men have too much power? Were women silent in our family? Were women's emotional needs not cared for? Women silent in our family? Was, you know, women's emotional needs not cared for? And so therefore, I don't, I don't find it important to express my feelings to my husband, right, it's important to identify those patterns and if you have your mom, there are ways to go to her and talk about these things, like saying I approach every mother daughter relationship for the mom like there's no shame or blame.
Speaker 1:That's my goal. Is you feel no shame or blame, because moms get enough blame everywhere else and it doesn't need to be part of this conversation, which is why moms are hesitant to be part of this conversation. And so going to your mom and saying there's no shame or blame, it's just understanding. I just like to talk about what happened and what it was like for you, right, and then you share what it was like for yourself as well, also saying things like I'm learning about. I listened to this podcast, I read this book and I learned this thing about the mother daughter relationship that that really made me think. I'm going to talk to you about what's your relationship like with your mom. Did you feel heard by your mom? Like, start with your mom and learn about her experience and then you can bring it to your own relationships. You'll learn a lot that way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I mean, everybody's going to have so many different outcomes and, and you know, I'm an only child, you have siblings, you said and so it's so different, right.
Speaker 1:We still have these different levels of relationships that we're going to have. Yeah, same mom. Different mother-daughter relationship. Yeah, Three of them in my family.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I can only view that for my own self and two daughters. I only have one mom to have. You know, she only has me to have this relationship, and so I can see some patterns in which maybe could have been better, could have gone different ways and things like that. But at the same time I think that, like we speak every single day and for me that's been something that I hoped that could happen in my daughter's relationship it things differently with my youngest. Let's be honest, how lucky that I have this chance to kind of reflect on all of these other things I've learned.
Speaker 2:For you know, 12 years prior and then say, okay, let's try things differently. So I want your opinion and what you think about this one. I mean, she's 12, so lots of years have passed. But when she was really little, one problem I struggled with growing up was self love, value on respect for myself, understanding that I was still important as a human, and all of those things, and it was like I will not. I will not let this child, this person, question their love for themselves in their life, like, how do I do this? How do I change it?
Speaker 2:When she was really little, I would say to her like you know how sometimes grandmas or whatever oh, you love grandma the most, you love da da da the most, and I would always tell her you love you the most, you love da da da the most. And I would always tell her you love you the most. You come first, you're number one when it's who loves you the most. It's me, then it's you, then it's you, then it's you. Whatever, you're first always. That's always what the answer needs to be, and so I hope that that stayed. You know, within her she does have a sense of like self worthiness and like value. I see that I never had that I admire so much when I look at her. So, yeah, I hope it makes a difference in her life. The way and it's tricky because she not having to go through what I went through there's no comparison, there's no understanding how the what the difference really means when you don't know what the difference is. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I and I. I think it's a beautiful example of how we want to protect our daughters from the pain that we've faced.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and we're like this is exactly what we're talking about. We say we want to protect our daughters from the pain that we've faced yeah, right, and we're like this is exactly what we're talking about. We say we want to do it differently. It's like I want to protect my daughter from whatever it was any hurt that I faced. I don't want her to face it.
Speaker 1:Some of it, unfortunately, it's inevitable because of the world we live in and how women are seen and the pressure that's put on women and girls. You know, I do this exercise when I speak to mothers and daughters together and I ask the daughters like share all the pressures that you feel like in your life at your age? And then I asked the moms and it's always so similar, even at a generation apart right, I have to be nice. I want people to like me. I have to do so many things. I have a lot of responsibilities. I have to take care of everything. There's so much that is hard for us to change because we just fall into this role in society.
Speaker 1:I think your biggest power is not only the words you say, but how you show her that you love yourself. Number one, right the way you let others take care of you, the way that you stand up for yourself, the way that you, you know, speak your mind without apology. That's your biggest strength, because our moms are showing us how to be women in the world. And so she looks at you and she's like I know not only that, you know I should love myself the most, but I know how to do that because I watched my mom do it every day. Yeah Right, um, and that really is. Is your biggest tool is showing her how to do it.
Speaker 2:I love that. I have a list of goals right Connect to me and I'm going to write that down when we're done.
Speaker 1:I'm working on that all the time and no pressure right Like, no pressure to like be perfect. But it's like, if you want that for her she's gonna know how to do that so well, because she watched you and it was just like in everything you know, you just embodied it and so she'll. It'll be natural for her too.
Speaker 2:Do you think that there's more impactful ages or time frames or gaps of growing up, or is it? I mean, just all is so important? Obviously? Are there any? Like you know, before this age or right at this age, you need to be doing this kind of thing?
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, there's no wrong age to be doing any of it. I do think that our daughters are more connected and lean on us more when they're younger, like before 10, right, we know that girl's self-esteem starts to drop. It's like the highest it will be at that age, which is, you know, something that I'm always working against. But knowing that, naturally, that you know some of the dip in self-esteem and how girls feel about themselves is the pressure they start to become aware of and feel after that age. But the beauty of this relationship is daughters always crave the love of their mothers and the attention.
Speaker 1:So, even when they're teenagers and like we're told, you know they're, they're going to go do their own thing, they're going to be independent. You know, back off, don't do as much. It's a mistake really to give daughters too much space, too much independence, like they still need you, crave you, right, but they crave easy and fun and support, right. So you know, making sure not to back off at those ages and still be present and be a huge part of your life. But I think then again, in young adult ages, like in later 20s, daughters start to become more open and start to see their moms with empathy and um as humans, and so that's a really great time um to be more connected in a sort of adult, in your adult relationship. Um, yeah, so it is different depending on the stage, but all of them are important. Yeah, they are remain to remain connected.
Speaker 2:Yeah what do you think about? And, um, being a step-parent, step-mom, step-daughter relationship? How can? I've been in mind for 20 years so I, you know, don't need to know how to start it or how to like flourish into that. But for moms that might be, for women that might be out there that might be just becoming stepmoms for the first time, how can they learn to be open to that child and really create that relationship that they're not number one, stepping on their another mother's toes or you know that they're just there to support and to to love and you know, kind of be the role that they were, that they're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think being a step parent it's difficult because you sometimes you don't know what your role is Like.
Speaker 1:I don't want to take over the parent's job, I don't want to enforce the rules, but also like, what do I overlook?
Speaker 1:And I do think the role of a step parent, especially as you're starting, is a supportive one, a fun one, a connecting, like getting I'm getting to know you, I'm understanding you, I accept all parts of you and really that's what daughters want anyway is to feel heard and seen and loved for who they are.
Speaker 1:So it's the perfect way to kind of ease in is to build that relationship. You know, I'm sort of looking at it, picturing, like even a therapist, right, it's like I'm building this relationship with my client and helping them feel seen and heard and they can trust me and and um, we can have fun together and it doesn't have to be hard. Um, that's really what that step parent role should be in the beginning like an aunt or, you know, uh, your mom's friend. You know, right, um, dad's friend, you know it's, um, it's really meant to be easy, and like I've just got another adult on my team who's going to support me and it doesn't cause me stress and stay away from the discipline part of it and that part of the parenting and letting dad do that or the other mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that didn't happen in our family. So unfortunately, I did take on that role and that might be why there is some distance now. But that's something that I love, that I've been able to tend to her with and talk to her about. Now she's in her twenties. Like you said, it's um. I mean, I think that every individual is different. There's definitely different maturity levels for every individual that you're going to come in contact with, be in your family or not. So you know, maybe we'll, we'll talk in her 30s, Maybe she'll have made it there.
Speaker 1:You know, to replace yeah, but I always say to moms, like you know, if you're, you have to be giving the invitations like inviting them into conversation right, and they might say no, they might reject it, but they might not be ready. But you never know when they will be ready. So continue to make those invitations, continue to spark those conversations, ask those questions you know, not all the time, but often enough where they know you're interested and it's important to you to have a good relationship with them because they matter and eventually you're going to hit her at the right time. You know, like you said, maybe it's in her 30s but she'll be ready because you've been persistent. She is pregnant.
Speaker 2:So maybe after her own child and I'm a grandma now, oh my God.
Speaker 1:And here's something for you, right. So, as you're entering this new stage, just to say you know what do you need from me now that you're becoming a mom I want to make sure that I'm helpful and I'm supportive of you, because I know what I needed as a new mom, right, but what you might need is different. So it's an open you know open invitation to tell you what she needs, and then you get to start this phase of your relationship in a really supportive place where she is getting what she needs from you that's.
Speaker 2:It's so important to my husband, and I always say this never change who you are based on someone else's behavior and how. That has a lot to do with your. Your kids too, I think, like don't stop, like you said, don't stop asking, don't stop being a part of their life because they say they don't want to talk to you that day or whatever. Um, yeah, listen, listen, but don't listen, right? No, just joking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, I guess it's important that we all we know what the right things to listen, when to listen and when not to um, when not to follow through with bad things, right, or something that's not important, but yeah, I think, um, that is. That is such a fascinating, complex like relationship, but it should be fun and easy and loving and safe feeling. I know that's how I want to be a mom. That's how I want my kids to feel safe and loved and heard and all of those things. So I think that's the best way we can just try to show up Absolutely. Oh, where can people go to find out more about your services? Um, websites, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my website is hillarymaycomcom and I'm on Instagram. Mostly that's kind of where I hang out and that's HillaryMayCo, and I have some free resources and some workshops that teach a lot of what we talked about today so moms can get started and implementing some of the things that they want to change.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's wonderful, and I appreciate that too. I think resources are so important. Like we said, sometimes we don't know that we're going to need them until that moment of crisis, and then we're like, oh my gosh, we need resources now. So, even if you need to reach out to Hillary and she can guide you in the direction of somewhere you might live or anything, please, please, do that. And for all you moms out there who are listening, we'd love your feedback. We'd love to hear what you thought of this conversation today and reach out to us If you have any follow-up questions or anything. I'd love to stay in touch with Hillary so that we can, you know, collaborate on other things. I'm probably going to need to reach out for personal reasons soon. Get on the coaching schedule. No, it's been so nice to have you here today and to get to know you, and I think it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing that you're doing and your focus is just so important for the world and so wonderful job, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for sharing it with your audience. You know it helps to get the word out there that there are people who specialize in this and you don't have to struggle with your mom or your daughter.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It's been wonderful talking to you today and, yeah, spring is coming, so have a wonderful spring you too, thank you.