Abstract (Summary)
Sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists have described a special closeness between mothers and daughters over all stages of the life course, from the infancy of the daughters to the old age of the mothers. (For a review of recent research on the mother-daughter relationship, see Boyd, 1989; see also Baruch and Barnett, 1983; Fischer, 1986; Hagestad, 1981; Hammer, 1976; Walker and Thompson, 1983.) Mothers are said to identify with daughters more than with sons; daughters are more likely than sons to be caregivers for their elderly mothers. Potentially, however, recent changes in women's roles undermine the special mother-daughter bond. These trends may widen the "generation gap" so that mothers' experiences may have little relevance to their daughters' actual futures. More specifically, the fact that an increasing proportion of women remain childless, along with the salience of professional careers in the lives of many women, means that the mothering role often is not passed down from mother to daughter.
How this relates to my work:
After working with more photographs, I have started to take much more interest in the lineage of women in my family. I have talked before about the direct line from my Great Grandmother to me, that has become so apparent to me while working with these pictures and movies. Of course I have always known about my Great Grandmother, and understand that we are related, just as I am related to my mother and grandmother. Working with these images has just reaffirmed the connection that we all have. Seeing my Grandmother as an infant in her Mother's arms, then a child, then a teen, then an adult having her own children makes me look at my these women in my family not as my Grandmother, mother, or great grandmother but as people with their own separate thoughts, lives, and identities. What connects us is that line of birth. Each woman has gone through the birth experience, and passed down a child, who then has a child of her own. The line has come to me. The study, explained above, mentioned the importance and power of mother daughter relationships, as well as the fact that things are changing. Women are working more and more, not spending as much time with their children. Many women are choosing not to have children at all.
Reading that this mothering role may not be passed down form mother to daughter, and that the mother's place in her daughter's life will lessen is a scary and sad forecast. It made me start to look at these images in a different way. The gift of coming from a line of loving, caring mothers is a gift. It made me realize that I want to be able to have children and continue this line of loving mothers and families.
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