Daughters more successful but less happy“At her age, I was married, I had a house, had a husband. She’s single, no boyfriend, she lives in an apartment by herself. I’d say it’s better for her to be married, but that’s just my opinion.”

ANN ARBOR—Nearly two-thirds of 611 mid-life mothers studied felt that they had been less successful in their work lives than their adult daughters, according to a University of Michigan study to be presented Nov. 18 in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America. But many felt that their daughters were less happy than they had been at the same age.

The study was conducted by Deborah Carr, a sociologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research, the world’s largest academic survey and research organization. Her analysis was funded by the National Institute on Aging.

For the study, Carr analyzed data on women with daughters from a sample survey of Wisconsin high school graduates from the class of 1957. The women were interviewed by mail or phone at ages 18, 36, and 53, with additional in-depth personal interviews conducted with some at age 59.

“Thinking back to when you were the same age your daughter is today, how were you doing in terms of work?” the women were asked at age 53 or 54. “Were you doing much better, better, the same, worse, or much worse?” About 64 percent of the women said they had done worse or much worse, while 25 percent reported doing equally well and only 11 percent said they had done better or much better, Carr reports.

The daughters ranged in age from 22 to 40. Overall, they had 14 years of education, compared with an average of 13 years among the mothers. Many of the daughters worked in higher status occupations than their mothers had.

In the analysis, Carr controlled for the mothers’ levels of self-acceptance and depression, and for the feelings they expressed toward their daughters. She also factored into the analysis a variety of objective indicators of mother’s and daughter’s labor market success in order to see whether the mothers’ assessments of their work success compared to their daughters were a function of actual or perceived accomplishments.

She found that the mothers’ comparisons with their daughters reflected objective characteristics, and were not linked to either the quality of the mother-daughter relationship or the mother’s own level of self-acceptance and self-esteem. “This was a puzzling finding,” Carr notes, “since a significant body of research suggests that comparing yourself unfavorably with someone is linked with lower levels of psychological well-being.”

To explore the issue further, Carr analyzed open-ended interviews with 16 of the mothers conducted in their homes when they were ages 58 or 59. The women were asked to think about their own work and family lives when they were the same age that their daughters were today, compare their successes and failures, and explain the reasons they saw for any differences.

“Few of the mothers attributed their daughter’s success to the women’s movement or other social changes that have helped women over the past 40 years,” says Carr. “Instead, the mothers were more likely to attribute their daughters’ success to unique personal characteristics, such as intelligence, ambition, and skill juggling work and family.”

For example, Betty, a high school graduate who was employed as a social worker after raising four children, boasted that her daughter had two college degrees. “And to get those degrees, she’s really worked her little butt off,” Betty said.

As they praised their daughters, many of the mothers also made self-deprecating comments. “She’s done everything she ever set her mind to,” said Diane. “I was just a homebody. I just wanted to stay home and raise babies.”

Notably, Carr found that many mothers described their daughters’ successful work lives as mixed blessings. They noted that their daughters’ careers were often accompanied by strained marriages, or worse yet to many of the mothers, by no marriage at all. Although the midlife mothers were clearly proud of their daughters’ educational and career accomplishments, few reported that their daughters’ lives were more desirable than their own had been.

“Most mothers believed that their daughters’ choices and their simultaneous pursuit of work and family goals carried considerable psychological costs,” Carr explains. “The strains of combining work and family, the stress of professional careers, and the difficulties accompanying new family forms, including step-families and single parenthood, were viewed as problems unique to the daughters’ generation. Mothers repeatedly said the stresses and strains their daughters experienced were something that they had been spared.”

For example, Janice, a bank teller whose daughter is a junior high school teacher, said, “At her age, I was married, I had a house, had a husband. She’s single, no boyfriend, she lives in an apartment by herself. I’d say it’s better for her to be married, but that’s just my opinion.”

“She’s having a lot of problems,” said Helen, who worked as a maid, about her 37-year-old daughter, a college graduate who worked as a scheduler. “She married somebody with three kids, and they’re giving her a lot of trouble. I never had the problems she has, you know, the stress.”

Focusing on stressors in their daughters’ lives may allow the mothers to justify their own life choices, Carr suggests. “Interestingly, a close inspection of the survey data from 1975 forward shows that many of the mothers were grappling with work and family demands similar to those their daughters are now facing,” she says. “Nearly 70 percent were working for pay at age 35, roughly the same age their daughters are today. Emphasizing that their work duties had been far less important than their child-rearing duties, and recounting their pasts to comply with the 1950s edict that ‘good mothers’ should stay at home with their children, may allow the mothers to protect themselves from the threat to their self-esteem posed by daughters’ who have more successful careers.”

Established in 1948, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. Visit the ISR Web site at www.isr.umich.edufor more information.

Contact: Diane Swanbrow Phone: (734) 647-4416 E-mail: [email protected]

Gerontological Society of America