[Adult mother-daughter relationship and mother's psychological well-being]

Kotomi Kitamura1, Takashi Muto

  • 1Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8610.

This study examined the relationship between the quality of a middle-aged mother's current relationship with her adult daughter and such indices of her well-being as depressive symptoms and self-definition. A cross-sectional sample of 231 middle-aged women with an adult daughter completed questionnaires. The results showed that middle-aged mothers with a married daughter felt closer to their daughter than did mothers with an unmarried daughter. The association between the quality of mother-daughter relationship and mother's psychological well-being changed, depending on whether the daughter was married or employed, and whether the mother was employed. Among the mothers who were not employed, with a married daughter, a positive mother-daughter relationship was associated with reports of high self-definition and lack of depressive symptoms while the mother's dependence on her daughter had a negative association with her psychological well-being.

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