The Woman Who Gave Birth To Her Mother: Seven Stages Of Change In Women's Lives

THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO HER MOTHER: SEVEN STAGES OF CHANGE IN WOMEN'S LIVES By Kim Chernin; Viking, 1998; $23.95.

It is common in our culture for daughters to alternately blame and forgive their mothers for what's amiss in their own lives, according to Kim Chernin, a psychoanalyst. This frustrating cycle can supposedly be broken if a woman tells an attentive listener a "mother-story"--a painfully honest chronicle of her relationship with her mother from her earliest childhood memories. The author sees such narratives as tools that can help women achieve a healthier, more realistic understanding of their connection to their mothers. By doing this, a daughter can symbolically "give birth" to the mother "she feels she has always needed and deserved." According to Chernin, tellers of mother-stories usually pass through seven distinct stages as they come to terms with their memories: idealizing, revision, blaming, forgiving, identifying, letting go, and giving birth. You can look for--and find--these seven stages in the six stories Chernin presents, which are composites based on her patients' discussions of their troubled dealings with Mom. Even readers who don't go for Chernin's theories will respond to her exquisitely compassionate renderings of these women's sagas of personal growth.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Weider Publications
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