The Mother–Daughter Tangle: Why This Relationship Is So Hard… and So Worth Healing

After Bedtime with Big Little Feelings

Dear Media and Big Little Feelings

Big Little Feelings, Kids & Family, After Bedtime, Kristin Gallant, After Bedtime With Big Little Feelings, Deena Margolin, Parenting

4.7 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Kristin and therapist/author Eli Harwood unpack why mother–daughter relationships are uniquely tender, triggering, and complicated. Eli explains how daughters reflect parts of ourselves we haven’t healed, fear, envy, expectations, and old wounds we wish we’d outrun. They dive into the generational dynamics that shape us, from mothers who sacrificed everything to mothers who tried to control in the name of “protection.” Eli shares her own childhood story: growing up with a mom battling depression and a dad struggling with alcoholism , and how it shaped her codependency, perfectionism, and “put together” persona today. The conversation is raw and hopeful as they explore how healing ourselves creates the future relationship we want with our daughters. This episode will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about mother–daughter dynamics.

This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
0:03.9	Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins.
0:10.1	The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right.
0:14.2	We're Kristen and Dina, child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of big little feelings.
0:20.0	And we're not here to give you more pressure
0:21.9	or perfect parenting energy. Nope. We're here to tell the truth, the unfiltered, beautiful,
0:27.6	brutal truth about what it means to raise kids and re-raise ourselves in the process. Because
0:33.4	parenting isn't just about sleep schedules and snack hacks. It's about healing. It's about breaking cycles.
0:39.3	It's about becoming the kind of adult you want your kids to grow up to be.
0:43.3	This is the place where we say the quiet parts out loud, and we're so glad that you're here.
0:48.3	I am sitting here with one of my dear friends who I love more than anything and who I was obsessed with long
0:56.9	before I met her. You probably know her as attachment nerd. Her real name is Eli Harwood,
1:02.7	and she is a therapist, a mother, and author on a mission to make the world a more securely
1:08.1	attached place, one parent-child relationship at a time. She is the creator
1:12.3	of attachment nerd, author of bestselling books securely attached, raising securely attached kids,
1:18.1	and the recently released Mother-daughter Journal, Uniquely Us, which is my favorite thing on Earth
1:23.9	that I just started doing with my daughter. Eli, welcome to after bedtime. Thank you so
1:29.6	much. I love hanging out with you after bedtime. Oh my God. We've been talking about doing this,
1:35.2	I don't know, for a year. Yeah, maybe. No, no, no, that's dramatic. It's not been that long.
1:41.0	Really? Months, maybe months. That's not bad. Let's just go with months.
1:44.8	That's not bad. No, no. I'm proud of us. I'm so proud of us. We are working moms. How is it
1:51.9	being a working mom for you? That's not what this episode is. We're going to talk about mother-daughter
	...

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