ABSTRACT
The fact that Mom became an accepted and well-understood symbol for women in late motherhood who found it impossible to let go of their children attested to the denigrated status of women at this stage of their lives. They were pilloried as a generation of vipers. Mom was the victim of a series of changes that were coming to restructure all kinds of sex roles including the role of mother as she had been socialized for it. A great deal of the onus of Momism was borne by mothers-in-law, among the most maligned characters in the popular media. Until recently any stand-up comedian could count on a laugh at the mother-in-law's expense. As startling as anything else in the story of women is the phenomenal increase in the labor-force participation by women whom the tactful researchers label "mature," that is, 45 years of age and over. Parents and children living together in a common household are real and vivid families.
