Does your mom constantly nag you to finish your homework? Clean your room? Does she tell you that you can’t go out to that party tonight?
The typical response of most teenage girls is a slammed bedroom door in protest.
But maybe, just maybe, you’ll thank her later in life.
The University of Essex in England conducted a study between 2004 and 2010. 15,500 girls were analyzed between the years of 2004 to 2010. The research team was studying the girls’ relationships with their mothers; they analyzed how they interacted, how much pressure the mothers put on their daughters, and how much their moms nagged or badgered their daughters about their responsibilities and tasks. While the girls’ fathers did play a role in keeping their daughters in check, it was ultimately the girls’ mothers who placed greatest pressure on their daughters. They placed their aspirations on their daughters much more strongly than the girls’ fathers.
The researchers conducting the experiment actually found that the girls who had mothers that had high hopes and set high standards for them were more likely to be successful; the girls were more inclined to go to college and also earn better wages. The study also found that the pressure put on the girls by their mothers proved that they are less likely to become pregnant and become a teen mom. What also comes in to play with this is the fact that girls who become teen moms are more inclined to leave school early and thus earn a lesser wage than others, if they do get jobs.
Ericka Rascon-Ramirez, a researcher, said that “In many cases we succeeded in doing what we believed was more convenient for us, even when this was against our parents’ will. But no matter how hard we tried to avoid our parents’ recommendations, it is likely that they ended up influencing, in a more subtle manner, choices that we had considered extremely personal.”
“What our parents expected about our school choices was, very likely, a major determinant of our decisions about conceiving a child or not during our teenage years.”
I remember feeling constantly hounded in high school by my mom to clean up my tornado-stricken room, or to submit my job applications already, or to follow up with a teacher. If it weren’t for that constant reminder, I would have put my tasks off for far too long and missed many opportunities that proved to be very valuable today. The reminders actually allowed me to become more aware of my obligations. Now that I’m on my own in college, I think about what my mom would say if I skipped that class or just didn’t do my assignment. I have become a more proactive person because of it.
So it’s important to keep your standards and aspirations high because maybe your nagging mother knows what she’s talking about.
