Hey guys! I'm currently beginning a novel about two teenagers and the relationships they have with their parents. I want to accurately portray what it's like for one who is really close with her mother and one who definitely isn't. I don't know if this is too much to ask, but could you guys maybe say what your relationship with your mother is like and how it reflects on other aspects of your life? Thanks!
Hope you are well. I try to answer your question in a more general sense, then explain my relationship, so let´s get started!
The relationship between mother and child is the first relationship that a newborn develops and thereby also distinguishes that it is its own individual. This is therefore the first developmental process; the child receives an "identity". Through the first years as an infant and toddler, a new type of bond then develops between mother and child (The father and other persons are left out). This type of attachment is important because in many cases it can form the future bonds and relationships that a child has as an adult.
Teenagers are special in that they are in the growth phase and develop a very different relationship with their parents. You describe two extreme cases here; let's start dividing them:
Case 1: Close relation mother <-> child
A close relationship between the two can result in the teenager having doubts about themselves, lacking self-confidence or simply being a little neurotic. The character feels comfortable where he grew up, which also gives him a target.
Case 2: Not close relation mother <-> child
The child is looking for some kind of independence. It wants to separate itself from its mother, is more open, and also deals more openly with figures of the opposite sex. But I think this kind of figure can also fall the opposite way, the figure sees the mother as something untouchable, something that must not be touched, so that this distance exists, perhaps through influences/punishment/reward / wrong reaction / too exaggerated reactions to certain actions of the child.
It is difficult to do anything concrete based on the limited data. Maybe you could add what the characters themselves are like? That would help to depict these relationships better.
Gender:
Points: 320
Reviews: 2