Good Daughtering: The Invisible Work Our Adult Daughters Carry

What does it really mean to be a “good daughter”?

For many women, it means remembering birthdays, making the phone calls, planning the holidays, buying the gifts, checking on aging parents, keeping siblings connected—and carrying an enormous amount of emotional and mental work that nobody else sees.

Dr. Alison Alford, author of Good Daughtering: The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Enough, calls this work “daughtering.” Her research explores the active—and often invisible—ways adult daughters work to keep families connected. 

In this episode of Bite Your Tongue, we speak to Dr. Alford about what daughtering looks like today, particularly when women are also juggling careers, partners, children, friendships and households.

We discuss social reproductive labor and the “first, second and third shifts”: our paid work; the work of running a household; and the wider work of maintaining family and community relationships. Dr. Alford points out that men certainly do this work, too, but women are still more often expected to do it. 

We also explore:

• The hypothesis of generosity. Rather than assuming an adult child's silence or absence means something is wrong in the relationship, what if we make the most generous assumption possible? Maybe they love us very much—and have simply run out of resources. 
• Rumination. Dr. Alford compares replaying our hurts and worries to repeatedly running water through the same coffee grounds: eventually everything becomes bitter. Filling our own lives and practicing gratitude can help break that cycle. 
• Connection versus information. When we finally get our adult children on the phone, are we peppering them with questions? Dr. Alford suggests preparing a few interesting things we can bring to the conversation instead. 
• Conversational “doorknobs.” Offer topics your child can choose to open—or not. An article, a funny story, something happening in your own life. Every doorknob doesn't have to be opened. 
• Judgment versus curiosity. Even positive responses such as “That's great!” can sometimes close a conversation. Instead, try curiosity: “How did you come to that?” 
• Matrophobia—the fear of becoming one's mother—and why a daughter's desire to be different from us doesn't necessarily mean she's rejecting us. 

And one final challenge for parents: Are we asking our daughters and daughters-in-law to carry responsibilities we don't expect from our sons? Dr. Alford suggests distributing the work. Sometimes, simply text your son instead.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Alison Alford's Good Daughtering and her work: Daughtering 101

Dr. Alford also recommends Eve Rodsky's Fair Play, which looks at the often-invisible work required to keep a household and family functioning. Learn about Fair Play and the book

There is also a Fair Play card deck designed to help couples talk about and redistribute household responsibilities. I'm intrigued by this one! The Fair Play Deck PenguinRandomhouse.com

And here's the article Dr. Alford mentions about creating conversational “doorknobs”: Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs<