Adult daughter-parent relationships and their associations with daughters' subjective well-being and psychological distress

The relationship between the quality of adult daughters' (N = 350) experiences in their current relationships with their mothers and fathers and the daughters' mental health (i.e., subjective well-being and psychological distress) was examined. The daughters are a subsample drawn from a larger, disproportionate, random, stratified sample of 403 women aged 25 to 55, who were practicing social workers or licensed practical nurses, and who resided within a 25-mile radius of Boston. The sample varies in race, social class, family-role pattern (i.e., partnership and parental status), and number of parents still alive. Quality of experience in the daughter role was assessed separately for the daughter-mother and daughter-father roles. Overall, daughters reported positive experiences with each parent. Having a positive relationship with a parent was associated with daughters' reports of high well-being and low distress. The association between the quality of a daughter's relationship with her mother or her father and her psychological distress was conditioned by the daughter's family-role pattern. For example, having a poor relationship with one's mother was associated with reports of psychological distress (i.e., symptoms of anxiety and depression), particularly among daughters who were single or childless. The relationships between both indices of daughter's mental health and daughter-role quality did not differ by race or social class.