Thursday, March 04, 2010

Book Review: Mother-Daughter Duet

Mother-Daughter Duet
Getting to the Relationship You Want With Your Adult Daughter

By Cheri Fuller and Ali Plum

A Harmonious Relationship is Possible!

When your daughter was born, you had a thousand hopes and dreams for her…including that one day you’d be best friends.

But as life unfolds, even the best intentions go awry. There are so many challenges on the journey to adult friendship that the reality is fraught with friction and frustration. Thankfully, a harmonious relationship with your daughter is possible.

Written by a mother and daughter who have successfully navigated the minefield from distance and tension to acceptance and friendship, this book helps moms open wide the door of communication so that daughter want to walk through it. Filled with personal anecdotes and based on proven principles, each chapter offers timeless wisdom as well as a daughter’s perspective. Often these principles apply to daughters-in-law as well.
After reading Mother-Daughter Duet by Cheri Fuller & Ali Plum, I know this is a book I'm going to need to read again and refer to often.  It's a book written by a mother and daughter for mothers and daughters, designed to help you get to the relationship you want with your adult daughter.

Since I have a 19-year-old daughter who is just now entering into adulthood, this book couldn't have come at a better time.  Through the book Cheri and Ali take us through their own relationship, sharing the hard times and how they worked through them to develop a relationship they can both truly enjoy.  They also share stories from other mothers and daughters with all different kinds of relationships.  The common thread seems to be that, no matter the circumstances, the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complicated relationships, if not the most complicated.  It can also be the most rewarding.

I found it encouraging to read Ali's contributions of the daughter's point of view.  No matter how bad things seem, or how much your daughter seems to be pushing you away, she really does want to have a relationship with you.  There are lots of times when I really need to believe that!  On the other hand, she is really trying to separate from her mother and become her own person, and she needs to know that her mother will be OK.
If mom doesn't let go, a daughter can't come back on her own free will to choose connection.
The hard part is finding the balance, letting go; accepting your daughter for who she is, even if she hasn't got it all figured out yet; only helping when she ASKS for your help - there are a lot of helpful tips in this book, through all stages of life.  We are just entering this stage of our lives and, after reading this book  I am encouraged to believe that having a harmonious relationship with my daughter is possible, and this book gives me some of the tools I need to make that happen. 

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Mother-Daughter Duet is available now.  I did not request an extra copy to give away, but here are a few blogs I've found that are offering giveaways, if you'd like to try and win a copy:
Those are just a few.  If you're interested in more, just use Google Blogsearch and search 'Mother-Daughter Duet giveaway' and you'll find more.