The tension to mother the "right" way can leave a peculiar silence within mother daughter relationships--the silence of a mother'sown truth and experience. Within this silence, a daughter's authentic voice can also fall silent. This is the silence of perfection. This silence of perfection prevents mothers from listening and learning from their daughters.

Raising a daughter is an extremely political act in this culture. Mothers have been placed in a no-win situation with their daught ers: if they teach their daughters simply how to get along in a world that has been shaped by men and male desires, then they betray their daughters' potential But, if they do not, they leave their daughters adrift in a hostile world without survival strategies.

The next generation of women will enter a world in which they are perceived to have more opportunities for creating fulfilling lives than women have ever had before.

The tension to mother the "right" way can leave a peculiar silence within mother daughter relationships--the silence of a mother'sown truth and experience. Within this silence, a daughter's authentic voice can also fall silent. This is the silence of perfection. This silence of perfection prevents mothers from listening and learning from their daughters.

Listening to learn isn't about giving advice--at least not until asked--but about trying to understand exactly what someone means,how it is that someone looks at and feels about her particular situation.... Listening to learn from a daughter in adolescence, conspiring with her thoughts and feelings, keeps a mother in touch with a daughter's growing and changing self.

Generation after generation of women have pledged to raise their daughters differently, only to find that their daughters grow up and fervently pledge the same thing.

Few stories are written about what happens to the princess after the wedding. Reading between the lines of other stories, we can sketch out her "happily ever after": The princess gets pregnant and hopes for sons. As long as she is faithful and bears sons, she is considered to be a good wife. We don't hear whether or not she's a good mother, unless something goes wrong with her children.... All of history has been written about the subsequent adventures in the chapters of his life.