My Mother Was Right

My Mother Was Right focuses on the most fundamental and complicated connection of all--the mother-daughter relationship--to show that it is only after we learn to value, accept, and forgive our mothers that we are able to come to terms with ourselves. This truly inspirational and original book is written in the words of women from all walks of life including a Pulitzer Prize winning author, an Episcopal minister, a federal judge, and a vice-president of General Motors.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Mothers and Daughters

1 The Journey 3

2 The Way They Were 27

3 Always Have Something to Fall Back On 45

4 Stand On Your Own Two Feet 63

5 Just Wait Until You Have Children of Your Own 81

6 In God, All Things Are Possible 109

7 Manners Don't Cost Money 131

8 An Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree 151

9 My Son Is My Son 'Til He Gets Him a Wife, But My Daughter's My Daughter All Her Life 167

10 You'll Never Miss the Water 'Til the Well Runs Dry, and You'll Never Miss Your Mother 'Til She's Gone 189

11 Coming Home 205

Epilogue 215

Appendix A: Survey 221

Appendix B What Our Mothers Told Us: A Cliche for Every Occasion 233

Notes 243

Index 247

About the Authors 251

BARBARA MCFARLAND has worked as a clinical psychologist and consultant specializing in women's mental health for the past twenty years. She is the author of numerous articles and books such as Shame and Body Image (Health Communications, 1990) and Brief Therapy and Eating Disorders (Jossey-Bass, 1995).

VIRGINIA WATSON-ROUSLIN is an award winning freelance writer and a communications and marketing specialist. For nine years she was the political, economic, and public affairs officer for the Canadian Consulate's Office in Cincinnati.

Lessons learned from babyboomer women as they make peace with their mothers

This insightful and entertaining book shares the stories of 170 women from the U.S. and Canada who came of age in the 1960s. Recalling the turbulent relationships they had with their mothers, these middle-age women discover they are now grateful for the advice they resented most as young women.

"We are changing our minds about our mothers. It is now occurring to us that the person we rebelled against, whom we used as a role model of how we would not like to lead our lives, and who upheld outmoded ideas on the place a woman should take in society and how she should behave, may not have been entirely wrong. She was not necessarily absolutely correct . . . but certainly we have now begun to seek a reconciliation with her on matters great and small. . . . Her oft-repeated homilies, those sound bites of motherly wisdom, which at one time would have caused us to roll our eyes and feel intense irritation, have taken on meanings."?
—from the Preface