ABSTRACT

The mother-daughter relationship has preoccupied feminist writers for decades, but typically it has been the daughter's story at centre-stage. Mothering the Self brings together these maternal and daughterly stories by drawing on in-depth interviews with women who speak both as mothers and as daughters.

This study examines the ways in which these mothers and daughters participate in their understanding of class, gender, and race locations, both using and resisting them. The result is a fresh start from which to consider the far-reaching implications of this relationship - not simply for mothers and daughters, but in terms of how we understand the shaping of the self and its place within the social world.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

Mothering the self

chapter 1|15 pages

Being and knowing

The social relations of truth

chapter 2|22 pages

Guaranteeing the social order

Good-enough daughters, good-enough mothers

chapter 3|20 pages

(Re)producing the self

chapter 4|24 pages

Girls growing up

Regulation and autonomy

chapter 5|24 pages

Daughterly stories

Matrophobia, class and the self

chapter 6|25 pages

Maternal stories, maternal selves

chapter 7|19 pages

Children’s needs and mothers’ desires

chapter 8|5 pages

Telling other stories

Refiguring motherhood and daughterhood