Mother And Daughter Relationship: Margaret Bear And Connie Bear

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else” is a quote by Erma Bombeck (2013). She writes novels about the relationship between mothers. This concept of self-disclosure is defined as “the revelation of personal information that others could not know unless the person made it known” (Duck, McMahan, 2015). There is real life evidence of mother and daughter relationships all over the world, however the specific focus used in this paper are daughter, Margaret Bear and her mother, Connie Bear. Self-disclosing information within a relationship with a mother and a daughter can positively impact the strength and healthiness of the relationship as a whole.
An example of a healthy and strong mother and daughter relationship through …show more content…
However, self-disclosure is easier to understand than just a dictionary definition. It is simply described as telling someone else information about oneself. The discussion could range anywhere from a person’s aspirations to what someone ate for lunch. The Social Penetration Theory states that as relationships develop, the interpersonal communication goes from shallow conversations to more intimate ones. (Taylor, Altman, 2002). The Social Penetration theory describes two parts of self-disclosure: depth and breadth. The breadth part of self-disclosure is the easiest part because it can be a range of topics that people talk about. These topics could be anything about a person’s favorites or their career. The depth, however, represents the secrets that people only share with those whom they view as close and …show more content…
Many people in her age group tend to not self-disclose information to their mothers. I think it’s important to add that other mother and daughter relationships should model their behaviors off of Connie and Margaret’s relationship. The relationship also adds an interesting twist to the classes concept of self-disclosure based on the environmental aspect. As Margaret moved about 3,000 miles away from home, she has found herself unable to talk to her mother as much and the communication to be different. She said there was a decrease of self-disclosure between the two because she has made new friends, and is in a different environment, as well as having a new found independence: All new factors of self-disclosure that we have not talked about previously. Based on my analysis, I recommend that mother and daughter relationships should be more like the Bear’s is because it is healthy and strong for both parties. As they go through this transition in life, I recommend to Connie and Margaret that they should continue to keep self-disclosing information to each other because it will benefit both of them