Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "daughters"
Familial Relationships
I'm writing my next fictional book this weekend. It's been an intense week, and I needed a little more escapism than writing Dad's biography allows.
But...writing about a daughter-mother relationship has its own challenges. Not the least of which is that I lost my mom a few years ago.
But Anna and Jennifer have a very different dynamic than my mother and I did. Jennifer, as I've written her, had Anna when she was just a teenager. And while she loves her daughter, the resentment of years lost and experiences she never had and never will colors their relationship.
Likewise, Anna loves her mother, but can't help but be tainted by those feelings from Jennifer. She noticed, at a young age, that her mother was much younger than the other mothers of her classmates. And she learned the truth of Jennifer's experiences - being kicked out by her parents, being abandoned by Anna's father, and being "rescued" by Anna's aunt. The pain of Jennifer's experiences can't help but filter into Anna's life, as well.
Still, they have a good relationship, even if they are very different in their interactions with the world. Jennifer is more practical, some might say cold. She is her own woman now, and she's not one to pull punches. Even with her daughter.
Anna, on the other, writes about romance for a living. She's longing for that kind of connection - one she's yet to experience.
But also longing for the warmth of a mother. And so, as Anna experiences the pain of her life being turned upside down, she runs back to the place where she felt that kind of love from a mother figure - the ranch on which she grew up and the woman who fed the household, including Anna.
Anna is much more of a soft-hearted character. Which is why her being exposed as a famous author and philanthropist, when she'd been hiding behind her nom de plume, hurts so much.
Anna needs a little more Jennifer. Jennifer could use a little Anna.
Perhaps by the end of the book, they will.
But...writing about a daughter-mother relationship has its own challenges. Not the least of which is that I lost my mom a few years ago.
But Anna and Jennifer have a very different dynamic than my mother and I did. Jennifer, as I've written her, had Anna when she was just a teenager. And while she loves her daughter, the resentment of years lost and experiences she never had and never will colors their relationship.
Likewise, Anna loves her mother, but can't help but be tainted by those feelings from Jennifer. She noticed, at a young age, that her mother was much younger than the other mothers of her classmates. And she learned the truth of Jennifer's experiences - being kicked out by her parents, being abandoned by Anna's father, and being "rescued" by Anna's aunt. The pain of Jennifer's experiences can't help but filter into Anna's life, as well.
Still, they have a good relationship, even if they are very different in their interactions with the world. Jennifer is more practical, some might say cold. She is her own woman now, and she's not one to pull punches. Even with her daughter.
Anna, on the other, writes about romance for a living. She's longing for that kind of connection - one she's yet to experience.
But also longing for the warmth of a mother. And so, as Anna experiences the pain of her life being turned upside down, she runs back to the place where she felt that kind of love from a mother figure - the ranch on which she grew up and the woman who fed the household, including Anna.
Anna is much more of a soft-hearted character. Which is why her being exposed as a famous author and philanthropist, when she'd been hiding behind her nom de plume, hurts so much.
Anna needs a little more Jennifer. Jennifer could use a little Anna.
Perhaps by the end of the book, they will.
