ABSTRACT
The young working mothers who lived in their own apartments had considerable stability in their lives by early adulthood. This chapter describes the transitions of the working mothers in some detail. Each elaborates the stresses of her work but also its rewards. Teressa, on maternity leave from her job, lived with the Julia's father of her second child. Teressa said she had been too sensitive and shy in the past and too caught up with Julia's father's concerns: "just thinking about him, and I didn't think about my friends who were important to me, my family". The stories of the other mothers in this group of working mothers who still lived with their own mothers had many similar features. Each told of a period of disillusionment following the breakup or loss of the relationship with their child's father.
