ABSTRACT
Do qualitative research on teenage girls and you will find you cannot get away from their mothers. Literally, because before you can get to the daughter’s room for your chat, you first have to spend the obligatory half-hour making small talk with mum over a cup of tea. And figuratively, because the mother is one of the most important people in teenage girls’ world of experience. When I asked girls to place the names of people in their immediate surroundings in a series of concentric circles to show degrees of intimacy, mum was in the first or second place every time. However, conversations with and observations of girls have shown me how ambivalent this relationship with the mother usually is. When I got talking to girls about important matters in their life, such as falling in love and friendship, their bodies and sexuality, loneliness and popularity, they proved very reluctant to speak freely about these sensitive matters in front of their mothers. The girls spoke rebelliously about the ways their mothers (and fathers) attempted to limit their freedom if they knew too much.
