By:Linda Sapadin, Ph.D.
Mom's version: "I used to feel like the luckiest mom to have such a perfect daughter. She never gave me one ounce of trouble in all her 16 years. And now I find out that Jen has been smoking pot, sleeping with her boyfriend and lying to me for the longest time about where she's been and what she's been up to."
Daughter's version: "I don't do anything that all the other kids aren't doing. But I couldn't begin to tell my mother about what goes on in my life. She'd completely freak out. My mother lives in a fantasy world. She thinks only "bad kids" smoke pot or have sex. She needs to see me as the perfect
daughter. So I let her think that."
Mom's version: "It's so ironic. I always thought that I needed to protect Jen from all the bad things in the world. Now I discover she believes she needs to protect me from reality. I'm not so fragile. Jen could have told me what was going on. Sure I wouldn't have liked it, but I could have handled it!"
Daughter's version: "My mother thinks that she's open-minded. She flatters herself that she's so understanding that I shouldn't have to rebel. She doesn't get it that I'm no longer that sweet, smiling, perfect daughter that I was when I was younger. I'm different now. And she doesn't want to know that!"
After the shock of discovery, which happened when Jen got caught in a lie, it was time for mother and daughter to acknowledge the distance that had grown between the two of them. When Jen was younger, she had been mom's "perfect daughter." But Jen had been changing and her mother had not really noticed.
It wasn't, however, all mom's fault that she had not known about Jen changing, for Jen had not been open with her mother. Jen was afraid to talk to either of her parents about sensitive issues because she felt they would never understand. But her mom insists that her daughter should have taken a
chance and spoken up about what she was doing and see what happened.
Jen's mom admits that she would have been initially hurt and upset but she would have gotten over it. Indeed, she felt insulted because her daughter believed she was so fragile that she wouldn't have been able to handle the truth. "I'd have to be living under a rock not to know about sex and drugs and teenagers," she insisted.
Once expectations are brought out into the open, relationships are usually enhanced, even if there is a rocky period at the beginning. Both Jen and her mom needed to know what each one expected from the other -- instead of assuming that they already knew. In most relationships, especially those with a solid history, each partner turns out to be not only willing but able to handle and incorporate the differences between them.
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who specializes in individual and family therapy as well as personal coaching. Copyright 2001
