Parental Jealousy – Mother And Daughter
Cindy was a lovely sixteen-year-old girl who came in with both her parents. She was tall, very pretty, and looked me squarely in the eye as she stepped into my office. Mother and father took turns relating that they had done their best to keep their family together, but that there had been so much arguing and fighting with their daughter that many people at Cindy’s school had found out about her problems at home. So in a benevolent gesture, one of Cindy’s teachers had decided to become involved. She was a divorced mother who lived in the same school district with a daughter about Cindy’s age, and kindly offered to take Cindy into her home temporarily until the problems could be sorted out with her parents.
Cindy had two younger brothers aged 10 and 7 who were well behaved and apparently didn’t give the parents trouble. The parents said that the main source of their problems was that Cindy, who was a top student, would keep her own hours and run her life independently from the rest of the family. They complained that she would study, stay on the computer and converse with her friends on the phone until late at night. Mother reported that the late hours were disturbing the others in the household, especially the younger boys. She felt that Cindy’s behavior was non-compliant, selfish and out of line. Although both parents agreed that they were very pleased with Cindy’s stellar school performance, her mother complained that Cindy kept a separate schedule, ate on her own and would not participate in most of the family’s activities. For her part, Cindy remarked that she loved sports and had pursued a great deal of training in swimming. She said she worked three evenings a week as a swim instructor where she earned some money, and was also in training to improve her skills so she could work as a lifeguard in the summertime as well. A diligent and responsible girl, she expressed that because of her busy schedule, she needed to stay up late every night to maintain her high level of academic achievement.
The mother and daughter came together to the second session and I soon realized there was very little hope that any form of therapy could be of help in this case. We sat for the first half session where they discussed their disagreements. I made efforts to defuse the situation by trying to reach a reasonable compromise that could resolve their differences. In fact, with Cindy promising to abide by the family schedule and saying she would try her best to comply with the house rules, for a brief moment toward the end of the session, it seemed as if their problems could be sorted out and mother would agree to take her daughter back home. However, even though Cindy promised to be extra quiet at night, when she requested an 11pm curfew instead of 10pm, mother suddenly retorted angrily: “No, no! I can’t have that! You’re not coming back home like that!” At this point, Cindy began to scream and cry and after some shouting and arguing, she ran out of my office into the hallway and continued to sob. Nothing was accomplished and no progress was made. Moreover, I was discreetly advised by the management of my office building that no such noise could be tolerated in the future.
My DOLF analysis of this family’s situation is as follows. At the beginning of their married life, these two young, well-intentioned parents had moved to a new city where the woman had found a good job and her husband had stayed home to start a new business. When Cindy was born, the father looked after their baby daughter, a good solution to their babysitting problem since he was always at home. However father and daughter had become emotionally bonded during this time because Cindy had enjoyed an exclusive relationship with her father for six years before her first younger brother was born. The father had taken over the role of PLG for her, making Cindy a Favored child which, in line with DOLIF theory, caused her to develop a likable personality that was essentially gentle, caring, well socialized and well-adjusted.
Emotionally speaking, it seems that the crux of the problem in this family was that the mother was upset, and angry with the emotional attachment and closeness between her husband and daughter. On perceiving their close connection and mutual love over the years of Cindy’s growth, the mother had slowly built up active feelings of jealousy toward her daughter. Now, in the mother’s adult Intellectual realm she was finding logical-sounding reasons that would allow her to claim that Cindy’s behavior was out of line and that she did not fit in with the general atmosphere of contentment in the rest of the home. She therefore pointed to this as the cause of their problems and convinced the father that it was justified. However on an Emotional level, the mother’s actions and attitudes toward her daughter were actually motivated by her Angry emotions – they way she felt inwardly jealous of her daughter. The result was that she was feeling annoyed by Cindy but was finding reasonable-sounding Intellectual justifications that would cause her to demand that the girl needed to be eliminated from the home.
This mother-to-daughter jealousy is a deeply embedded Emotional reaction, and one that is of course so disturbing and embarrassing that it would not be expected to be expressed vocally in words by any family member. There may be some sensitivity to the underlying jealousy by either the mother or the daughter, but such feelings are usually subject to vigorous denial by all involved. From the child’s point of view, they are not equipped to understand such feelings of jealousy or confront their parent. Moreover, revealing these feelings might lead the child to turn the disappointment onto themselves, creating issues of self-blame, lowered self-image and depression. Over the years the mother would have expressed these feelings of jealousy by showing discontent with Cindy’s performance and making increasing demands on her, for example by expecting a high degree of perfection, such as inferring that she is not doing well enough in school, that she is too demanding and selfish, making fun or otherwise being critical of her daughter. This would have had the positive effect of pushing the daughter to become the strong student she became and forcing her to discover her own resources to excel using her own skills. In an effort to please her mother, Cindy would have felt driven to achieve highly in all aspects of her activities. However, since this had continued over many years during which Cindy had begun to feel increasingly marginalized, even bullied by her mother, she eventually came to feel more and more alienated from the family as a group, which would have led to her self-distancing behavior from the family.
The intensity of their conflict had reached the ears of the staff at Cindy’s school and the benevolent teacher had stepped up to offer to take Cindy in. However, the time frame for this arrangement had expired and now a new solution had to be found. Unfortunately at the same time, a pattern had been established wherein Cindy no longer lived at home, which gave the mother license to claim that things were so much better and more comfortable without Cindy around and the opportunity to pin the blame on Cindy for all the disturbance. In fact, extracting Cindy from the home had only given the mother more proof and ammunition to argue her cause against Cindy, and had brought matters to a critical point for the unfortunate girl.
The father’s role in this scenario was a passive one. He hardly vocalized his own opinions, but nodded his head periodically. Through his silence he granted support to his wife’s expressions of discontent with their daughter’s behavior. He seemed convinced that Cindy was the cause of the problems at home and did not raise his voice to argue on her behalf or challenge his wife’s views. He was also preoccupied with the financial issues with which the family was suddenly being confronted, and content to leave matters at home for his wife to settle. He agreed with her that Cindy’s behavior was unacceptable and that she should face some disciplinary action. This apparent agreement and cooperation between the parents became clear in a comment made by Cindy. She described her parents as a “tag-team”. She said they were always “in cahoots” with each other, and that one would always follow the actions and dictates of the other. Noted by the therapist however was the fact that in this case it was the mother who was the leader who generated most of the ideas for the couple’s actions and initiated most of the decisions, while the father was the follower.
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There are cases where there is no solution but to separate the parties involved, and I have seen some of these over the years. Two more such cases are described in a blog titled: Parental Jealousy: Father and Son. Sometimes both parents turn against the non-compliant child, whether Favored or Disfavored. The most common dynamic occurs when a soft-hearted PLG mother or father is egged on by a hostile, uncompromising ALG. The PLG may or may not be aware of the undercurrents in the conflict between their spouse and child, but is powerless to intervene and oppose the ALG to protect their child. In the meantime, the child has little recourse but to view their PLG as a traitor to their personal interests. Cases such as this mostly involve one very easy-going PLG who is pushed into a corner by an overly aggressive and demanding ALG. The PLG then either becomes convinced on a logical level that the culprit is the child, or goes along with the ALG for reasons such as fear of breaking up the family. In the meantime, the true intention of the ALG is to extract the child in a bid to attract and monopolize the love and attention of the PLG for themselves. The ALG’s route to this end is usually to make the PLG believe that the negative nature or behavior of the child is so bad, corrupt, distasteful or disruptive to the peaceful life of the family that there is no choice but to extract the child or somehow force them to leave the home. It is not farfetched to affirm that unfortunately, many such children end up in Boot Camps or other rehabilitative facilities.
