graduate school. Whatever they are doing, it doesn’t seem “for real.”
Their attitude is that of the eternal adolescent, indecisive about who
or what they want to be when they “grow up,” waiting for something
or someone to transform their lives.
MOTHER’S DAUGHTER
Persephone and Demeter represent a common mother-daughter
pattern, in which a daughter is too close to a mother to develop an
independent sense of herself. The motto for this relationship is
“Mother knows best.”
The Persephone daughter wants to please her mother. This desire
motivates her to be “a good girl”—obedient, compliant, cautious,
and often sheltered or “protected” from experience that carries even
the hint of risk. This pattern is echoed in the Mother Goose rhyme:
“Mother, may I go out to swim?”
“Yes, my darling daughter.
“Hang your clothes on a hickory limb,
“but don’t go near the water.”
Although the mother appears to be strong and independent, this
appearance is often deceptive. She may foster her daughter’s depend-
ence in order to keep her close. Or she may need her daughter to be
an extension of herself, through whom she can live vicariously. A
classic example of this relationship is the stage-manager mother and
actress daughter.
Sometimes the father is the dominating and intrusive parent who
fosters the dependent daughter. His overcontrolling attitude may
also be deceptive, covering a too-close emotional attachment to his
daughter.
In addition to family dynamics, the culture we live in also condi-
tions girls to equate femininity with passive, dependent behavior.
They are encouraged to act like Cinderellas waiting for a prince to
come, Sleeping Beauties waiting to be awakened. Passivity and de-
pendency are the core (“Kore”) problems for many women because
the environment reinforces the archetype and thus other aspects of
the personality do not develop.
Goddesses in Everywoman