My Mother/My Self : The Daughter's Search for Identity

Rating:
Summary: Re-read and appreciated MUCH more after 10 years!
Review: I read this title when it was first published and at that time my motivation was in trying to understand my own ambivalent feelings about my mother. Today I finished it in search of trying to understand my twenty year old daughter. This title has helped me on both ends.

First my own mother was never what I preceived she should be, I had my mental image that she did not live up to, and as a teenager, like most, I was very critical of her. This as noted in the title is about healthy separation. Most daughters when they come to learn they really can fly on their own can and do return to a grown up healthy mother-daughter relationship.

Of course, my mind was that I would never let my daughter feel the void I felt with my own mother. I was affectionate, supportive and present for my daughter. My mother of course was not these things in my view. I believe that I raised my daughter much differently than I was raised by my own mother. I have no recall of long conversations, hugs, kisses or tender times with my own mother. I do however have many memories of these times with my own daughter. From the book and from my own personal experience I have learned, it really made little difference. My daughter would do what she wanted, how she wanted in her own way to self identity. Also from this book often the separation is harder and harsher for the closer mother-daughter bond.

This title was ahead of its time when I first read it, all the women's groups were recommending it. All these years later I have to say it has stood the test of time.

Need to understand the mother-daughter bond better? Then this IS the book to buy!

Rating:
Summary: Re-read and appreciated MUCH more after 10 years!
Review: I read this title when it was first published and at that time my motivation was in trying to understand my own ambivalent feelings about my mother. Today I finished it in search of trying to understand my twenty year old daughter. This title has helped me on both ends.

First my own mother was never what I preceived she should be, I had my mental image that she did not live up to, and as a teenager, like most, I was very critical of her. This as noted in the title is about healthy separation. Most daughters when they come to learn they really can fly on their own can and do return to a grown up healthy mother-daughter relationship.

Of course, my mind was that I would never let my daughter feel the void I felt with my own mother. I was affectionate, supportive and present for my daughter. My mother of course was not these things in my view. I believe that I raised my daughter much differently than I was raised by my own mother. I have no recall of long conversations, hugs, kisses or tender times with my own mother. I do however have many memories of these times with my own daughter. From the book and from my own personal experience I have learned, it really made little difference. My daughter would do what she wanted, how she wanted in her own way to self identity. Also from this book often the separation is harder and harsher for the closer mother-daughter bond.

This title was ahead of its time when I first read it, all the women's groups were recommending it. All these years later I have to say it has stood the test of time.

Need to understand the mother-daughter bond better? Then this IS the book to buy!

Rating:
Summary: Should be part of the school curriculum - everywhere!
Review: I wish that I had been told about this book when it was first published - it would have saved a lot of heartache! Before the end of the first page I was able to relate to Nancy Friday's comments and experiences. I must have said "that's me!" a million times. This book is a "must" and should be read by men and women - the insight is quite extraordinary - and it is encouraging (or perhaps depressing!) to know that, basically, we are all the same!

Rating:
Summary: If you buy self development books, this should be your 1st!
Review: I've had this book since it first came out, and have read it several times. I read it every couple of years because I have found that I get something different out of it each time. It is the most powerful book on self development I have in my library. Maggie Scarf " Unfinished Bussiness" is the second.

If you were to have only one book of this kind in your life, "My Mother, My Self" is the one.

Nancy Friday is a thorough researcher and an excellent definer of the complex language of psychology. She is clear & concise for all reading levels from high school on. Reading this book does take time, since her research is so revealing and often heavy. Be prepared for shocking subject matter.

This book has served me very well over the years as it will anyone else who reads it.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Important Book For Women to Read
Review: In 1989, I had the "opportunity" to be around family more than I had been in my adult years. And it was with the help of this book that I learned to accept my mother, while I still owned every painful emotion that I experienced in her presence.

It was after one of those phone calls where if you are a woman you may be familiar. I just couldn't seem to get the connection that I desired from my mother. And I didn't know how to language the problem, so that I am free to live my own life.

It was after that telephone call, in 1989, that I bought this book, and have read this book many times since then.

The first wonderful experience that I had, as I read this book was the realization that my mother did the best that she knew how to do. That acceptance created a level of peace within myself, because it freed me to stop looking for the perfect mother.

You will learn from reading this book, that your mother really is your first mirror. And by reading this book, by facing your first mirror, in a psychic way, you will give yourself, and your mother permission to be separate, lovable, empowered women.

This book also is great for helping women to treat one another better. Because although we have more opportunities, women still hold one another back in the worst of ways - many women still believe that our opportunities are limited, and that if a woman is successful, she is taking all the power away from other women.

Read this book to love yourself.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Important Book For Women to Read
Review: In 1989, I had the "opportunity" to be around family more than I had been in my adult years. And it was with the help of this book that I learned to accept my mother, while I still owned every painful emotion that I experienced in her presence.

It was after one of those phone calls where if you are a woman you may be familiar. I just couldn't seem to get the connection that I desired from my mother. And I didn't know how to language the problem, so that I am free to live my own life.

It was after that telephone call, in 1989, that I bought this book, and have read this book many times since then.

The first wonderful experience that I had, as I read this book was the realization that my mother did the best that she knew how to do. That acceptance created a level of peace within myself, because it freed me to stop looking for the perfect mother.

You will learn from reading this book, that your mother really is your first mirror. And by reading this book, by facing your first mirror, in a psychic way, you will give yourself, and your mother permission to be separate, lovable, empowered women.

This book also is great for helping women to treat one another better. Because although we have more opportunities, women still hold one another back in the worst of ways - many women still believe that our opportunities are limited, and that if a woman is successful, she is taking all the power away from other women.

Read this book to love yourself.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Important Book For Women to Read
Review: In 1989, I had the "opportunity" to be around family more than I had been in my adult years. And it was with the help of this book that I learned to accept my mother, while I still owned every painful emotion that I experienced in her presence.

It was after one of those phone calls where if you are a woman you may be familiar. I just couldn't seem to get the connection that I desired from my mother. And I didn't know how to language the problem, so that I am free to live my own life.

It was after that telephone call, in 1989, that I bought this book, and have read this book many times since then.

The first wonderful experience that I had, as I read this book was the realization that my mother did the best that she knew how to do. That acceptance created a level of peace within myself, because it freed me to stop looking for the perfect mother.

You will learn from reading this book, that your mother really is your first mirror. And by reading this book, by facing your first mirror, in a psychic way, you will give yourself, and your mother permission to be separate, lovable, empowered women.

This book also is great for helping women to treat one another better. Because although we have more opportunities, women still hold one another back in the worst of ways - many women still believe that our opportunities are limited, and that if a woman is successful, she is taking all the power away from other women.

Read this book to love yourself.

Rating:
Summary: My Mother... My Opinion??
Review: It took me a while to get into this book... there were several occasions where I tempted to give up on it.

I'm glad I stuck with it though.

Those of you with a difficult mother/daughter relationship will probably benefit from reading this book. I know I did. Even though the author isn't a mother (which does bother me a little), I feel that her theories make sense.

The version I have of this book is quite old and was published in 1977(I picked it up in a used bookstore). I'm not sure what type of editing has been done on newer versions but I'm sure the main message will be the same.

My Mother My Self would benefit women who would like a deeper understanding of their relationship with their own mother, and also their daughters. Men might like to read this to understand the complex dynamics of these relationships.

Rating:
Summary: Women's Psyche?
Review: It took me It took five plus years to read this book.

I asked my girlfriend for permission to read it. I hoped it would reveal secrets and I wanted a 'club member's' permission to learn them. I hoped it would be a revelation of the female psyche.

It wasn't. In the end, the truth was reinforced that daughters "introject" more of their mother's character than they are generally winning to admit. Not too profound.

Friday's point is that mothers and daughters symbiotically depend on each other. Daughters are determined to invest mother with magic importance--the way the baby sees mother. They are lost in that first attachment to her as when she was the Giantess of the Nursery. As long as they are symbiotically linked, there is hope that it is not too late to get perfect love.

To mature, daughters must separate from this image of mother, even if it is held after mother's death. Daughters remain childish unless they separate. Separation means "health, independence and tradition-breaking possibilities."

I read through to the end, and now the book is in the kitchen trash. I still want to know the female psyche--which explains what kept me going for five years plus.

This time, I feel no compulsion to get permission . . .

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for both men and women
Review: Nancy Friday has "done it" with this book. Much as John Bradshaw's "Inner Child" work in the early '90's created a shift in our understanding of the human heart, Nancy Friday's work in this particular book, predating his by almost two decades, leads the way to conscious living in today's society- and crying real cleansing tears- unlike anything I've read. Underneath the poetry that is recited in most New-Age philosophical literature today, from Marianne Williamson to Iyanla Vanzant- particularly that which is written by women- seems to be this unvoiced feeling of existential anxiety that sits like a pink polka-dotted elephant with wings on top of the refrigerator of their minds. They try to keep their ideas pure, fresh, and, though attempting to portray them as warm, they come off often surprisingly cold- particularly when speaking about men, marriage, family and male/female relationships. I am often left feeling as if I've been laughed at or dismissed underneath being taught a new way to pray in their books, because that secret anxiety has been successfully transferred to me, the ignorant "neophyte" of their modern spiritual age. Nancy Friday not only dares- and dares us- to look at that pink elephant of anxiety and listen to its screaming truth with courage with this book, SHE GIVES US AN ANATOMY LESSON ON IT.

And perhaps that is the magic of it. Talk is often rendered so cheap in most of the self-help literature specifcally by its childlike dwelling on the concept "fear" as if it were the one-dimensional devil from Medieval Christianity decaffinated by modern secular society. I come away from much of their work quietly confused by the ironically mildly frightening context of it being something- once recognized- immediately vanquished in all areas of life simply by thinking spiritually; knowing that everyone from Olympic athletes to worldclass entertainers and performers to happily married people after ten years must have something more than that to go on to be what they are. The spiritual books sell of course, but the tonic doesn't last more often than not and our personal anxiety returns, because such an easily marketable approach often exacerbates the very issues detailed in MY MOTHER, MY SELF via trivializing their alternately undistinguished and ignored destructive power.

MY MOTHER, MY SELF is the kind of book that creates the paradigm shift everyone searches for in figuring out the pain of their broken relationships, and the embarrasing patterns that engender them, underneath the "isms" of society that we normally run to to explain them. Nancy could have stopped with redeeming the power of everything you thought you knew about Freud, his disciples and their work on the mother/child relationship, but she goes far beyond that. This is the kind of book that lets you see what could be stopping you in every area of life, from sex to career, from living to the fullest of your capabilities. This is the kind of book that stops treating fear, (particularly "I'm afraid of my own power [*ohmm*]") as a mantra we simply need to stop saying in our heads, and gives us a schematic diagram of it's architecture to see how we are LIVING in it. (We simply and so often just move from room to room- sex to relationships to career to family to friends to competitions to politics to money to "spirit", back to family and to relationships- because the full recognition of where we are living emotionally and existentially is still not as damaging or painful to our minds as the realization of it's consequences beyond a given compartmentalized area of our lives.) In so doing- letting us see fear is a house in which we've living and operating from, a house with a name- we see through her work how we have been living and treating others in most of our lives, and how simply it explains so many otherwise made-mysterious things that cause us such unhappiness and lack of personal fulfillment.

It obviously looks like it was written purely for women. But it really isn't. Especially because in today's society (some twenty years after its first printing), many identity and sex roles are being reversed even moreso among women and men. But also becuase many men, like myself, have been raised in a single female parent household in such a way as to have the selfsame psychological issues women have. Because of the difference in expectations of our gender, we are just treated with an open contempt for their unconscious expression, instead of the sublimated pity with which we in the world habitually treat women. It also enables men to see what does often detroy our relationships, particularly when, after the true committment has been established in our hearts and openly shown to the world, the Dr. Jeckyll we've fallen in love with turns into the Mrs. Hyde we never saw before- or thought we left at her mother's house.

As an instinctive lover of irony, it is never lost on me that as a man, the most soul-freeing book I've read in quite some time were written especially for women. (So was the last one [Friday's JEALOUSY])! But despite the small drawbacks in it being dated, thereby not showing the many new female heroines of today, I can assure any woman and man reading this that you will not be able to look at relationship issues and today's world the same afterwards.