Mothering the Self

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.

1. Being and Knowing: The Social Relations of Truth 2. Guaranteeing the Social Order: Good-Enough Daughters, Good-Enough Mothers 3. (Re)Producing the Self 4. Girls Growing Up: Regulation and Autonomy 5. Daughterly Stories: Matrophobia, Class and the Self  6. Maternal Stories, Maternal Selves and Desires  7. Children's Needs and Mothers' Desires   8. Conclusion: Power, Resistance and the Self