Product Description
This, the first book ever to say that mother is not always a girl's best friend, is based on a landmark study of the mother-daughter relationships. Secunda offers breakthrough advice on understanding, and improving, what could be a woman's most critical relationship.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 31 reviews)

Incredibly insightful by GRB

5 Stars
November 19, 2009
I found this book incredibly insightful. It explained my life. Unfortunately, I asked my mother to read it also and she did not share my enthusiasm. Our relationship has now ended.

If I Could Give This Book Ten Stars, I Would! by J. Jean Elliott

5 Stars
October 18, 2009
Until seeing this line of books for sale on Amazon.com, I never knew they existed. I ordered this one because its title addressed this issue that I have failed for a lifetime to understand and get others perpetually calling me a liar to believe as real. Since receipt of and reading it within a week, I have been trying to find the author. Is Victoria Secunda still alive? For it is as if she wrote this book from the ceiling of my parents' home and recorded all the verbal, psychological and emotional abuse and physical neglect of me as it happened! Everything in this book explains the volatile relationship I've had with my mother, a fifth child and last daughter with unresolved abuse issues by her own mother who wanted me to have none of the advantages, privileges, freedom or control open to daughters of the Baby Boomer Generation of the 1960s and 1970s that she didn't have growing up in the depression era/World War II 1930s and 1940s. It also explains why I lost my younger siblings to loyalty to her after I, knowing she was going to hurt them the same way, helped them so she's never been able to touch them. I wish I had known of this book on its release nineteen years ago! Though disillusioning, it is a relief to finally learn the truth I've long suspected that the only way my mother, a teacher and late bloomer who did not get her degree until age thirty six and driver's license until age forty one would have given me a way out to my own life and ability to feed myself when it all came at seventeen instead of throwing all my achievement away in order to keep me holed up in her house a grown woman disempowered, completely dependent on her and in wait of a phanthom husband to come along on her timetable and feed me would have been had I, a first daughter (and my sister behind me), been born a son. For any woman dealing with an "unpleasurable" mother you've been trying to be a daughter to for years yet have repeatedly failed to your continued frustration, and any woman that's lost all her siblings to loyalty to your mother in the process to your continued confusion, I advise you to order this book that explains everything as well as provides you a way out; because it is not you, it's her and you're not going to change her!

This book helped me immeasurably by Ann (California)

5 Stars
October 17, 2009
This book was given to me by my therapist. I read this book over twenty years ago in the throes of the complete disintegration of my relationship with my extremely difficult and emotionally disturbed mother. It made me feel as if I was not alone - and helped me to realize that I needed to cut my mother out of my life. This was not, as anyone can imagine, an easy decision for me. I have since given the book to many people who struggle with that pivotal relationship in their lives. A very valuable book that I continue to recommend and keep on my bookshelf.

Very insightful! by S. Sepasi

5 Stars
June 01, 2009
I thought the book was very insightful, the description of the different types of mother's was right on, as well as the daughters. And the action steps at the end were also quite helpful. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is having a difficult time with their mother and is looking to make sense and try to resolve the issue (vs. carry around blame on others).

Finding Freedom from Guilt by Jane E. Holt MLA (Madera Canyon, AZ USA)

4 Stars
January 01, 2009
The best thing this book did for me was help to release me from the guilt of not wanting to be like my mother or be with my mother all the time. The Bad Mother Taboo is strong indeed. Although some of the catagories of mothers and daughters outlined in the book do not fit every aspect of such a complex relationship, they are helpful guidelines. A threat I often heard from my mother and others while growing up was that the way I felt about my mother and they way I treated her, was how my children would feel and treat me. It took a long time for me to buy this book because I felt so disloyal and ungrateful for even approaching the idea that my mother and I didn't have the fabulous, loving friendship she projects to herself and others. Although the book did not address all of my needs and questions, it did help me understand my mother better -- her sad history and the fears that drive her. Love is never ideal. Be honest with yourself. Hidden feelings tend to bubble to the surface anyway. How you think you should feel about Mom is not always what you actually feel. It is okay to be angry. She doesn't own you.

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