When her beloved mother was hospitalised with lupus, Natasha Fennell, a Dublin-based communications consultant, plunged into a bout of soul-searching, asking herself if she’d been a good enough daughter and if her mother knew how grateful she was for everything she’d done. Determined to cherish what time they had left together, she became aware that, for most women, their relationship with their mother is one of the most complex, enduring, infuriating, joyous and guilt-riddled of their lives.
She decided to write a book, to encourage women to be more grateful for their mothers while they still have them. Róisín Ingle, the Irish Times journalist, was an obvious co-author, because her weekly columns often feature her mother. As Ingle says, "Apart from myself, there is nobody in the world as interested in me as she is."
Ingle advertised for contributions: “If you are a woman and you would like to improve your relationship with your mother before it’s too late, send an email to . . .”
The response was dramatic: stories flooded in; some were many pages long, drenched with guilt, resentment, worry, bitterness, regret, joy and sadness.
Startled by this tsunami of angst, Ingle joked that a club was needed – like a book club, but for daughters to talk about their mothers – and quickly the joke became a reality. Its terms of reference: what would happen when a group of daughters set out to fix, improve and challenge a relationship that had been left to its own devices for years?
Fennell and Ingle asked for a serious commitment, both timewise – six meetings over six months – and in terms of emotional honesty. Many women decided not to join, because they were afraid of their mothers finding out, or they simply couldn’t deal with the guilt of criticising their mother to strangers.
Guilt
The club ended up having nine members, and the first part of the book is each woman’s account of daughterhood.
Some were more painful than others: there’s Sophie, who has had to parent her mentally ill mother from the age of 11. Sadder still was Lily’s story: she’d been adopted by a narcissistic woman who spent decades saying, “You’re too fat, you’re stupid, you’ll never find a man to marry you.”
There’s Grace, who had a wonderful relationship with her mother until she got Alzheimer’s disease. Now Grace is grieving her mother, even though she’s still alive. Grace spends a lot of time in her car, crying.
Many women will identify with Maeve, “the Busy Daughter” who works from home and sometimes hides behind her couch, torn between guilt and resentment, when her mother arrives unannounced, and Debbie, the Disappointing Daughter. Debbie says that, according to her mother, “My house is a mess. I don’t do enough for my children. I work too hard.”
Cathy’s concern was that she was becoming an interfering helicopter parent, just like her own mother.
Ingle admits to being the Dependent Daughter; Fennell is the Dedicated Daughter; and Anna is the Reluctant Daughter, who says of her mother, “Although it sounds awful and mercenary, the truth is she is sitting on a house worth a fair bit of money. If she died I could sell it and go and live my dream.” Anyone who has ever felt that they weren’t a good enough daughter might breathe an at-least-I’m-not-as-bad- as-Anna sigh of relief.
The writing is beautiful. Situations and dynamics are presented via anecdotes and snapshot conversations that often read like excerpts from short stories, and each account is fascinating.
There’s a voyeuristic pleasure in hearing another person be entirely honest about a subject that is taboo. And, with the exception of Anna’s, every story is told with an unexpected clarity: most mother-daughter relationships are so snarled up with conflicting emotions, such as guilt, love, resentment and desire for approval, that I think it’s almost impossible to have an objective perspective.
Several of the women had already had some sort of counselling at which they had explored their relationship with their mother. And perhaps the accounts were written at the end of the six months, when they’d managed to untangle their history and smooth it into something from which they had some distance.
Homework
As the point of the club was for each member to improve mother-daughter relations, they got homework. They had to celebrate their mother, cook for her, travel with her, be patient with her and, most importantly, get to know her. Most of us think that because we’ve lived alongside them for so long we know our mothers intimately, but usually we’ve fixed on a decades-out-of-date version and believe there’s nothing new to learn. We’re probably wrong.
The book’s second part is each woman’s account of how her relationship with her mother has changed since she started the work. Results varied. Maeve (who hides behind the couch) took her mother on a three-day trip and didn’t lose the head when her mother kept asking if they were going to miss their flight. But Debbie, the Disappointing Daughter, also took her mother on holiday, and a lot went wrong, “This led to another barrage of criticism, which led to another painful bout of me feeling like a disappointment to her.”
Anna is still hoping her mother will die, so that she can realise her dreams: “to sail across the Pacific Ocean, volunteering on marine conservation projects”.
But Sophie, the daughter of the women with mental illness, says, “For so long I felt like a bad daughter. I don’t feel like a bad daughter any more. I want peace for both of us.”
This book is a wake-up call like no other. If you're lucky enough to still have a mother, the unpalatable truth is that she'll probably die before you do. And the word that crops up again and again with every bereavement is guilt. The Daughterhood urges us to do all we can to minimise regrets; it has made me think about my own performance as a daughter.
I'm very close to my mother: we speak most days, I find her hugely entertaining and she has been a stalwart friend to me through rocky times. But we don't always see eye to eye: I despise the faith that gives her so much comfort, and I mock it every chance I get. But I've decided to stop. She's too important, she's too good, she deserves better – and I'm profoundly grateful to have realised this before it's too late. Marian Keyes's latest novel is The Woman Who Stole My Life
