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The mothers in my study frequently say that they felt closer to their daughter’s generation than to their mother’s. They had clear memories of their own teenage years and though they said they ‘has changed a lot since then,’ they felt they were “basically the same person.” They expected to be able to identify with a daughter.

Many also said that they were going through a parallel phase of development. As daughters move through their teens, mothers feel that they are assessing a different kind of future for themselves. Anticipating fewer family demands and experiencing an increase in physical energy, Pippa now looks forward to being “more my own person, and developing lots of things I haven’t had time for.” While her own mother had been “at a loss when she realized I was growing up and actually said when I left home that she was staring at a dead end,” Pippa sees her daughter’s increasing independence as an opportunity for new personal freedom. “At my age my mother was old. I feel younger now than I did at thirty.”

As she speaks, she catches sight of the comic side: “As a teen I saw my 14 year old mom as old, but now I am 40, that doesn’t seem old. But she insists that there are real changes, above and beyond the inevitable change in perspective as to what counts as ‘old.” She gives clear examples of things that divided her and her mother, but that do not divide her and Ange.

Excerpted  from ’You don’t really know me’ by Terry Apter.