Relatively Relaxed
Elsie Smith and her daughter, Angie Hammill, were considering going on a vacation together to Guatemala to study Spanish. But when the two Canadian women contemplated all the planning such a trip would require, they decided instead to do their mother/daughter getaway at a spa in Mexico.
"Here everything is laid out and easy," Smith said on a cool, sunny morning in January at Rancho La Puerta. "We have the opportunity to focus on ourselves and still have time for each other."
The spa industry is booming, and mother/daughter combinations make up a significant part of the business.
Some so-called destination spas — where guests stay overnight for as long as a week or more — say that at certain times of year, mother/daughter combos comprise a quarter or more of their clientele.
The percentage of mother/daughter pairs is far smaller at the thousands of day spas all over the country, including in hotels, resorts and on cruise ships, mostly because of the sheer number of visitors.
But all spas see a lucrative opportunity in marketing services to mothers and daughters, with some designing packages for moms with kids barely out of kindergarten.
The Spa at Pinehurst in North Carolina opened a KidSpa in 2004 for children ages 6 to 11. For $250, little girls can get a kid's facial, "fancy fingers" manicure and "twinkle toes" pedicure while their mothers enjoy the grown-up version.
Sea Island Resorts in Georgia suggests that girls as young as 8 get a facial to learn basic skin care.
As might be expected in California, Tea Garden Springs in Mill Valley offers a mother/daughter package with a New Age flavor: Its Zen Garden Suite for Two includes 30-minute aromatherapy baths in side-by-side hot tubs with facing headrests, followed by side-by-side massages.
If such amenities strike you as embarrassingly self-absorbed, you may be relieved to find out it's really nothing new. Mothers and daughters have been engaging in such intimate "backstage activities" for generations and across all cultures, according to Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University and expert on gender differences in communication.Mother/daughter spa visits are "a new upscale version of mothers and daughters going to hair salons or going shopping," said Tannen, author of the bestselling book "You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation.""If you look at any culture, mothers are responsible for the daughter's life being the best it can be, and part of that is attracting a partner," she said.If, as Tannen suggets, mothers are virtually hard-wired to be attuned to their daughters' appearance, there couldn't be a better place to go together than a spa, with its mind-boggling array of body scrubs, herbal wraps, scalp treatments, massages, manicures, pedicures, facials, nutrition lectures, makeup lessons, hair styling, healthy meals — not to mention fitness, meditation, Pilates and yoga.It was, in part, that focus on appearance that prompted 22-year-old Emily Hearn, a recent graduate of the University of California at Davis, to visit Rancho La Puerta in January with her mother, Dorothy."I just graduated from college, I'm working from 9 to 5, I don't have time to work out and she noticed that," Emily said with a smile at her mother.Losing weight, getting in shape, planning a wedding, celebrating a graduation, taking time off between jobs — these are just a few of the reasons mothers and daughters say they go to spas.
Typically, it's the mothers, who may be retired and with more disposable income, who pick up the tab, and sometimes expand the entourage to include their own mothers or daughters-in-law, too. The Spa at Norwich Inn in Connecticut boasts of having had a reunion of four generations of mothers and daughters.Many spas offer mother/daughter discounts, with up to 50 percent off the second person staying in the same room.Diane Krause, a stem-cell researcher at Yale University, is grateful that her mother has invited her, her partner and her two sisters to join her on several occasions at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts. "It's something I would not do for myself," she said. "It's not how I would spend my money because it seems too self-indulgent, too decadent."Some spas, however, are noticing another trend: adult children introducing their aging parents to spa treatments."We find these first-time spa-goers are most comfortable enjoying a hand or foot treatment, and facials are very popular too. After that, they often return without the daughters to experience the therapeutic benefits of massage and body treatments," said Carla Minsky, a spokeswoman for Sundara Inn & Spa in Wisconsin Dells, Wis.BJ Droubi of San Francisco brought her two daughters to Rancho La Puerta earlier this year for a multiple celebration: She was turning 60 in March, daughter Lamisse (with a January birthday) was expecting her first child in April, and daughter Christina (February birthday) was planning a July wedding."I wanted to do a nice birthday gift for all of us and I thought a gift of health would be the best," Mrs. Droubi said one evening as the three were finishing dinner at the spa in Tecate, Mexico.
Though more and more men are visiting spas, and some spas make a concerted effort to woo them by offering special fitness classes and amenities like golf, the world of spas is still predominantly a female one — and many women who go say they like it that way.Christina Droubi said her fiance, a "meat-and-potatoes guy" who likes to watch TV and play video games, would not be a good fit at Rancho La Puerta, which serves largely vegetarian meals, has no televisions in guests' rooms, and discourages cell phones. In a place where women don't hesitate to show up for meals in sweat pants, "I would feel more self-conscious, more inhibited with him," she said.The Droubis had come looking for a place of "absolute, complete, unconditional love — no judgments," Mrs. Droubi said. "You know you have that with your mother and sister."
