The title of the article “There’s no handbook for mother-daughter relationships”, Feb. 28, is apt. There are no guides or books on parent/child relationships, be they mother-daughter/father-son or so on.

A healthy relationship is built over years between children and parents, requiring dedication, nurture and love by parents.

Talking about a mother-daughter relationship, it varies with the stage of the child.

When the child is an infant, a mother’s duty is to take care of her lovingly.

As she grows, the mother should be a friend to her, someone who listens to her stories, watches cartoons with her or plays hide-and-seek with her.

At a later stage, i.e. once the daughter attends school, a mother needs to be a teacher.

Learning begins at home. It has been observed that the children who are given additional home-study time are more interactive and alert at school.

Not only does she have to help with academic subjects but she also has to teach lessons of life. Discipline in life and respect for others, large or small, is learned from a mother.

Good manners begin at home, and children readily absorb that from their mother.

For a daughter or a son, their mother is the best cook in the world.

Ask anyone their favorite dish and back comes the reply, “anything cooked by ‘my mother’”.

A daughter can only understand the pain and sorrow of being a mother when she herself has a baby. The various emotions, the joy and the pain a mother goes through while bringing up her child can only be fully understood now.

Life comes full circle for a mother when she sees her daughter bringing up her own children.

There are not enough alphabets in the world to put into words the sum total of a mother-daughter relationship. It has the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the wind and the colors of the rainbow.

Niharika Ghosh
Purwakarta, West Java