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Why Unloving Mothers Have "I'll Fix It" Daughters
What looks like helpfulness could be maladaptive coping.
Updated July 25, 2023 Reviewed by Abigail Fagan
Key points
- What may look like helpfulness can become a maladaptive coping mechanism in a dysfunctional family.
- The daughter is motivated by the belief that if she does just "one more thing," she will get what she needs.
- Parentified children suffer great damage because there is a sense in which they are deprived of childhood.
By her own account, Jenny, now 35, couldn’t even remember a time when she wasn’t her mother’s rescuer. She was five years older than her younger sister and eight years older than her brother. By the time she was eight or nine, she was the babysitter her mother relied on; by the time she was a teen, she wasn’t just making her own lunch but those of her siblings, Her father was a sales rep and often on the road.
“My mother really never paid attention to me and I honestly thought that by doing things for her, she’d show me some warmth and maybe even say thanks. But that never happened and once I stepped into the role, I became trapped in it. I wasn’t even aware of it until after I married and my husband started remarking on how I was always rushing over to Mom’s to fix things. It reached a crisis when I was 30 and we were about to go on a ski vacation when my mother’s house flooded and my dad was out of town. By then, only my brother was still at home. Anyway, she demanded I come over and help her with the damage and I said ‘yes’ without thinking. My husband hit the roof because he wasn’t about to default on our vacation. I called her back, said I wasn’t coming, and she cut me out of her life for six months for being an ‘ingrate.’ My father took her side so I effectively lost both parents. I went into therapy and the therapist pointed out the role I’d been playing and why it was unhealthy for me. My efforts to set boundaries with her still fail so I remain stuck. But I have stopped being a rescuer.”
Maternal Behaviors and the “Fix-It” Stance
While allied to becoming a chronic “pleaser”—either hoping to stay under the radar of a combative mother or going along to get along—daughters (and sons) often become rescuers when certain maternal behaviors are more pronounced than others with slightly different motivations.
The daughter of a dismissive mother who ignores her as Jenny’s did will step into the role in order to get attention; the ultimate goal is to be seen and cared for by her mother and, alas, it’s not likely to work. Women with emotionally unavailable mothers will turn to helping and rescuing as a way of evoking some sort of emotional response. Celia, now 50, was one such daughter:
“My mother was divorced, raising two kids, and I tried hard to make myself indispensable to her as a way of getting her to respond to me. By the age of nine, I was doing the family laundry, walking the dog, making the beds so she didn’t have to. It changed nothing. I babysat my younger sister when our mother started dating but she only took it for granted. In fact, my trying to help just convinced me that nothing I did was ever good enough. Unfortunately, I became a pleaser in every relationship I had as a young adult and that continued until I was in my thirties when my husband left me for someone else and I was a single mother to two kids. My mother wouldn’t lift a finger to help—not one. That was a rude awakening but it was an awakening and I got help for myself.”
Daughters of mothers high in control or narcissistic traits who make it clear that love and caring are transactional learn at a young age that putting your own needs and wants aside and staying focused on what Mother wants is the safest way to go. They too may end up in the “fix-it” mode but, even more important, they may actually no longer know what their needs and wants are, given their intense focus on Mom they have effectively made their true selves disappear. Unlearning these behaviors and learning how to put themselves first in a healthy way often takes years of work.
When a mother is enmeshed with her daughter and is incapable of maintaining healthy boundaries, the daughter may also slip into the rescue/fix-it mode without even realizing it. Ironically, the enmeshed mother may actually love her child, unlike the other mothers I’ve described, but her dependency makes it impossible for the daughter to thrive. This daughter is also at risk, if for different reasons.
Finally, there is the parentified daughter; the mother has engineered a role reversal where her needs are addressed first and the burden is placed on the daughter to be the source of nurturance and support. Mothers who have children before they are emotionally mature enough often parentify the oldest child as well as mothers who suffer from addiction, undiagnosed mental illness, or are simply overwhelmed by the tasks of mothering. This situation is different because it’s not a path chosen by the daughter or adopted as a coping mechanism; it is a role she’s placed into and it has its own long-lasting effects. As an adult, she is likely to resent her mother for "robbing her of her own childhood."
Distinguishing between “Helpfulness” and the “Fix-It” Stance
Older children can be remarkably helpful to their mothers and if giving help doesn’t require the child to give up her own needs and wants on a consistent basis, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking a child to do chores, wash dishes, or even babysit a sibling if she’s old enough and mature enough. The rescuer position described in this piece is different in kind from helpfulness.
The material in this post is drawn from my book, Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life and subsequent interviews with readers.
Copyright © Peg Streep 2023.
Facebook image: larisa Stefanjuk/Shutterstock
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