Friends for Life: Enriching the Bond Between Mothers and Their Adult Daughters

Friends for Life is about that crucial period when mothers are trying to find a balance between encouraging their daughters' independence and imparting the benefits of their own experience. More than one hundred mothers reveal to the authors how they're coping with their daughters' preferences in partner, career, and other life-defining issues. They reflect on their relationships with their own mothers, and on their hopes for growing intimacy with their daughters. Jonas and Nissenson help mothers identify and resolve the tensions that can arise when their expectations for a daughter conflict with the reality of how she's living her life, when she seems to be making a grave mistake, when she doesn't want to hear the advice her mother wants to give. The authors also suggest to mothers that if they can share more of what's happening in their own lives they will strengthen their connection to their daughters. The authors, drawing on consultations with clinical psychologists and other professionals, present these intensely personal stories in a context that will help mothers communicate their thoughts and feelings more effectively during those years when they and their daughters are learning to see each other as adults and friends.