With grace, courage and articulate brilliance, Anderson tells her own story with unhesitating integrity and complicated respect, thereby inviting the rest of us to do the same. In every mother-daughter history map I draw, I see how the silencing of women’s needs harms women’s emotional well-being, limits their ability to advocate for themselves in their relationships and workplaces, and perpetuates gender inequality. This book is not only about complicated mother and daughter relationship but also about "guilty" relationship in general. Perhaps, if we're lucky it is not too late to catch some of your potential audience before they make the biggest mistake which will cause there most serious regret of their life.

Miriam’s daughter did not want to feel responsible for meeting her mother’s unvoiced and unacknowledged needs. Miriam, having had a far more supportive and empowering upbringing, was able to join her daughter to find a new normal for women within their family. The shortage of men caused by war at home or abroad make them a scacrer commidity, along with their earning power and strength and breeds this contemptious attitude that, therefore, these remaining men must be served and catered to regardless of the relationship casualties. Sandeep reported to me that she was the only person who gave her mother love and care, so the thought of Sandeep leaving home must have been terrifying to her mother.The way she describes the way these roles are different doesn't fit at all with the reality in other cultures. This is similar to how she talks to the daughters the whole way through the book so it wasn't surprising except that if she really knew anything about these kinds of abusive parents she was writing about and now to, she would know that saying these things wouldn't make them change. L. Anderson provides journal prompts that simultaneously stimulate your inner creator and provide much needed anxiety relief for your inner critic. Still other times, she raises a question someone asked her and either doesn't answer it all and instead just skips to stupid journaling exercises and then goes onto the next chapter, or she belittles them for their question and says it's not helpful or not the right question to be asking. And continues to state that the act of abuse is not abuse, but the perception of that abuse is abuse.

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To the extent that she says things that would clearly make them upset, such as, "it's all your fault that your daughter pulled herself away from you," and then following up with, "but I know it came from a place of hurt and suffering. She is puzzled when I can do something that she can’t ( or should I say WON’T) and believes that because she won’t do it, therefore I can’t. And there's a bonus: The strategies she suggests could be helpful in any close relationship in your life. For that, and for her clear, uncompromising prose, I would suggest that every woman who has struggled with her relationship to motherhood―from any perspective―reach for Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters.