What effects does this have on the daughter?

[Anonymous]

A daughter that protects her mother because she is fragile, needs reassurance and affirmations. She always asks approval from her daughter ever since she was a teenager and even before that. She's not confident with how she looks either.

I will like she is my daughter at times and I have to look out for her

[DaveJord]

I get these confused sometimes, terms are caregiver and caretaker. But they are both personality types that play apart in codependent relationships.

Codependency is a group of behaviors that cause us to have unhealthy relationships. Caretaking is one of those behaviors, and what we want is to replace caretaking with caregiving.

Caretakers worry; caregivers take action and solve problems.

Caretakers think they know what's best for others; caregivers only know what's best for themselves.

Caretakers don't trust others' abilities to care for themselves, caregivers trust others enough to allow them to activate their own inner guidance and problem solving capabilities.

www.expressivecounseling.com/.../codependency-caretaking

So when talk about care giving vs care taking it can get confusing. But at the end of the day, in this scenario the mother sounds like a caretaker, and the daughter is the care giver, and this can be very unhealthy for both.

Caretakers seek out caregivers... and more less make the caregiver responsible for their own emotional and mental wellbeing, and this can become very exhausting for the caregiver, if not abusive by means of manipulation or neglect.

The caregiver being the one that is taking 90% of the action, with the over whelming sense of responsibility to caretaker. The caretaker does not see these behaviors as being damaging, but they often use guilt and other means to manipulate caregivers into providing what they can not provide for themselves. So caretakers are emotional Leatches that drain all the emotional energy from the caregiver.

[Dargil]

She will make a good mother and a good friend on her own.