by Tania Mcloughlin

Created on: April 13, 2009   Last Updated: May 04, 2009

Your role as the parent of a daughter (or daughter-in-law) with a newborn - is to be supportive in many ways while trying to stay open and willing to share the ideals of your children.

Usually through life, and especially after leaving home and beginning to make a family, your daughter will be expressing independence, and showing you she can handle any of life's hurdles alone. They want to prove to you that you have done a good job at raising them and that the life skills you have given them have enabled them to grasp their own lives with two hands.

In the same ways you grew, and learned, and formed your own opinions about life and child rearing she has grown to find her own ways, while still accepting your ways, about which she may or may not have learned or gained the opinion that your ways are 'funny' or 'outdated'. So the balance is quite broad, yet on a fine twine bridge, and participated in by all members of the newly joined and growing family.

Although you might have done things differently when raising her, and it is hard not to remember and mention how you did those things, your resourceful independent child will have done quite a bit of research of her own to discover how she wants to do things and why. So in participating in the new parents methods and not arguing too much you will find a closeness which may never be found without accepting their choices.

Simple tips to help you to become and stay a helping hand, rather than '...a pain in the neck, Mum' follow. Keep listening for signs of not coping, as a mother you may think you can hear your daughter, but she also knows you well, and may still be trying to prove herself as a capable woman. Be certain about the things you are willing to do, and make it clear often in the early days, or write it on a checklist to leave at her home. Ensure you listen to her responses to any of your offerings carefully, she may shrug off you hanging out the washing on your visit only because she is ashamed of her postnatal stained underpants, so light hearted banter about how you dealt with it may ease her enough to let you hang them out. On the other hand her washing line may be the only thing in her days that keep her feeling like she is in control, especially if she likes to spend the time hanging things right and has not had a cesarean section surgery, or postnatal difficulties.

Randomly bringing a hot meal when she knows you are coming will be welcomed, and try to ensure it is in, or can be transferred to a freezer

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