The Multivocality of Meaning Making: An Exploration of the Discourses College-Aged Daughters Voice in Talk about Their Mothers

Abstract

The mother-daughter relationship is argued to be one of the most significant relationships in the family system. As such, it is important to investigate how daughters engage in meaning making regarding this relationship. The researchers used relational dialectics theory (Baxter, 2011 Baxter, L. A. 2011. Voicing relationships: A dialogic perspective, Los Angeles, CA: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996 Baxter, L. A. and Montgomery, B. M. 1996. Relating: Dialogues and dialectics, New York, NY: The Guilford Press. [Google Scholar]) to illuminate the interplay of discourses college-aged women voice as they talk with others about their relationships with their mothers. Framed within the dialectic of closeness and distance, inductive analysis revealed a total of six discourses at play in daughters' meaning making processes. Three discourses (i.e., friendship, parenthood, and independence) were voiced when daughters discussed times they felt closest to their mothers. The other three discourses (i.e., containment, impropriety, and separation) were evident in daughters' talk about times they felt distanced from their mothers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.