Customer Reviews

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother: Seven Stages of Change in Women's Lives

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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i loved what chernin had to say about the importance of telling your mother-story over and over until you reach a place of understanding with your idea of your mother as a person. i feel like i am doing this now and this book was a wonderful guide - great stories by all the women.

Chernin describes a way to unravel the knot that binds mothers and their daughters. The first 46 pages are the guide...the rest are stories of women who collectively speak as Everywoman. Chernin's listening skills are apparent on every page, as is her warmth and empathy.

I used this book in a course I taught for college students in a women's prison. I was amazed at how the case studies unfolded to a resolution that was both realistic and inspiring. The author's style has a poetic, almost mythical, quality. The advice the author gives is sound: learn to change yourself and your perceptions of your mother, and then the relationship may change for the better. There are no false promises here, but there are intriguing and hopeful possibilities.

I believe that this book is about a certain kind of mother- daughter relationship. It is not about all mothers, and all daughters. It is about mothers who have not been able for various reasons to do the job , be there for their children provide them what they needed at various stages in their lives. Chernin tells case histories of how a number of daughters went back, and somehow re-educated their mothers providing them a new understanding of themselves and what they had not given their daughters.

I had a very different kind of mother, one loving and caring who attended to her husband and children's needs in the best way imaginable. A loving kind person who gave much to everyone who knew her. My sister, her daughter cared with her during my mother's last years of illness with love and devotion. She did this when my mother was no longer able to really manage for herself. I do not think however my sister ever thought of this, as 'giving birth' to her mother.

One other point. This book is also pretty much about single- mothers and their daughters. This is of course a situation for many many people, but there are other life- situations also. And in most cases it is impossible to really understand fully the role of the mother without understanding the kind of father there is in the family.

Chernin is a very good writer, extremely intelligent and insightful.

Her final story is of her own daughter and mother. And in her own daughter's rejection of motherhood there seems to me to be a question raised (Which Chernin does not really address) about what it is which makes so many young people today turn away from the responsibility of parenthood, and the hope given by having children.

It seems to me in this regard that it is far more important for women to give birth to their sons and their daughters, than to their mothers.

Obviously the previous reviewer assumes all mother daughter relationships are like her own. For me, this book was an engrossing study of various themes in relationships, some of which are quite familiar and relevant to my own relationships with my mother and daughter. I found it a helpful and interesting book, and recommend it to all my friends and family.

Who said all families are dysfunctional? Kim Cernin helps prove it, but also offers creative and healthy ways to relate to our mother and daughter(s). It seems that as women we share common expectations of the 'right' way for good daughters and mothers to behave ... expectations that none of us can possibly live up to. In a series of artfully told stories, Ms. Cernin recounts ways her patients in therapy work to accept themselves and their mothers and learn to nuture themselves as they wish their mothers had. Ms. Cernin has made her book intimate and accessable by weaving in stories of her own daughter and mother. She confirmed for me that this is the some of the most important psychological work women do, that there are no instant solutions, and that it is a lifelong and ongoing task. It was a great relief for me to read stories so similar to my own attempts to understand and be understood by the most important women in my life. I wholeheartedly recommend "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother." I plan to send it to all my female relatives as soon as it comes out in paperback!

This a riveting and very informative look at the eternal journey of a mother and daughter.

Kim Chernin is an excellent writer as well as an astute and gifted therapist. I have recommended

this to several of my clients. Faye Reitman,MFT

In this book, Kim Chernin speaks to mothers and daughters who are trying to connect or reconnect to each other. She tells the stories of many mothers and daughters, including the story of her own relationship with her mother and with her daughter. The concept of giving birth to your mother is one in which a daughter can go through feelings of anger, disappointment, and whatever other feelings she might have toward her mother, take these feelings, and then try to give birth to her own mother, possibly through therapy, through self-care, or something else. I have recommended this book to many clients who struggle with their relationship with their mothers; it is a refreshing, poignant, honest, and enjoyable read.

Who said all families are dysfunctional? Kim Cernin helps prove it, but also offers creative and healthy ways to relate to our mother and daughter(s). It seems that as women we share common expectations of the 'right' way for good daughters and mothers to behave ... expectations that none of us can possibly live up to. In a series of artfully told stories, Ms. Cernin recounts ways her patients in therapy work to accept themselves and their mothers and learn to nuture themselves as they wish their mothers had. Ms. Cernin has made her book intimate and accessable by weaving in stories of her own daughter and mother. She confirmed for me that this is the some of the most important psychological work women do, that there are no instant solutions, and that it is a lifelong and ongoing task. It was a great relief for me to read stories so similar to my own attempts to understand and be understood by the most important women in my life. I wholeheartedly recommend "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother." I plan to send it to all my female relatives as soon as it comes out in paperback!

This book not only shares the horrifying tales of several unhealthy mother/daughter relationships, but it also examines the process of actually sharing those stories -- how women remember and retell the tales. A therapist might find such analysis interesting, but the average reader will not. Also, the stories are WAY beyond what most of us think of as struggles with our moms or daughters.