Bonding with your Daughter Guide

Velcro Connections: Church Banquets …and more

For the life of me, I can't think of any mother-daughter bonding moments of my childhood that truly stand out. That's odd, because at the ages of 60 and 33, my mom and I have a great relationship. Hardly a day goes by without at least one or two emails zinging across the thousand miles between us, and when we do see each other, the conversations are pretty darn fun and effortless. And while I can think of lots of little things—trying on the blue smocked sundress she made me when I was 8, the cute little notes she wrote on the paper napkin in my lunchbox, even the patient hours she spent combing through my long thick hair when lice made the rounds at my grade school—I can't think of anything that was really meaningful with a capital M. Then I realize that mother-daughter bonding, for me and my mom anyway, is kind of like Velcro: lots of little connections that, singly, aren't particularly strong, but taken together, are tough and lasting.

Now I'm thinking of the mother-daughter banquets at my grandmother's church every May. We'd all file downstairs to the basement of Bridgeport United and sit on those hard wooden chairs at those long wooden tables. The men of the church, including my granddad, would be clattering away in the kitchen (acting like they had actually cooked a full turkey dinner for 50, when really they had ordered it from a local caterer!) They'd serve us wearing flowery aprons, we'd admire the tabletop crafts the Sunday school class had made, sing some hymns accompanied by the plinky old piano and finally escape into the mild spring evening. I remember being reluctant to go at times (and I'm pretty sure my mom and aunts exchanged some eye rolls) but at the same time I knew it was special. I could look around the room and see all the mother-daughter pairs—my grandma, aunts, cousins, plus dozens of other women and girls from the parish—all spending time together. I bet those two hours of turkey-and-hymns are part of their Velcro too.