JANE GORDON, AGE UNKNOWN
‘I gave my daughters a less-than-ideal view of marriage’
The idea that along with blonde hair, blue-grey eyes and size five feet, I might have passed on to my two daughters my relationship DNA is something that has always worried me. Did my divorce from their father when they were young girls have a profound effect on the way they would conduct their romantic lives?
According to a study of more than 7,000 mothers and their biological children, by Ohio State University, I was right to be concerned.
“Mothers,” said Prof Claire Kamp Dush, “may pass on their marriageable characteristics and relationship skills to their children – for better or worse.”
Using nearly four decades of data, researchers cross-referenced relationship patterns in the same family line across generations, and found children tend to have the same number of romantic partners that their mother had (there was no equivalent data for fathers), whether they witnessed her relationships or not. Looking back, I can now see that the blueprint for my romantic life was quite clearly drawn from that of my own mother, who had married her first boyfriend, my enigmatic, larger-thanlife father, and stayed with him until death did indeed part them.
Despite the fact that their relationship was often tempestuous, I idealised it and set out to absolutely duplicate it when I, too, married my first boyfriend, my enigmatic, largerthan-life ex-husband. Perhaps I would still be married to him were it not for the societal changes that gave me the freedom and financial independence largely denied to my mother’s generation.
But as one of those Eighties having-it-all, working mothers, my approach to my marriage – and the dynamic of our relationship – was very different to that of my parents. Sadly, the example my ex-husband and I gave was of two people who had little in common living separate lives, albeit within the family home.
And while growing up with an independent mother did perhaps empower my two daughters, it might also have given them a less-than-ideal view of marriage as their parents moved further and further apart emotionally.
I have no doubt that the eventual break-up of our marriage, when my elder daughter Bryony [left] was 20, was a major cause of the subsequent decade of chaos she has written about so vividly. Curiously, though, it had a quite different effect on my younger daughter Naomi – 17 when my marriage failed – who has seemed to follow the blueprint set by her grandmother and has only had deep and meaningful relationships.
From the place I now find myself, I can only look back with regret. The message of this study – that working at maintaining the strength and stability of your relationship as parents is the greatest gift you can offer your children – is too late for me.