Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazy : Ten Types of Impossible Moms and How to Deal with Them - Hardcover

Susan Simon Cohen; Edward M. Cohen

3.43

14 ratings by Goodreads

9780761509851: Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazy : Ten Types of Impossible Moms and How to Deal with Them

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761509852 ISBN 13: 9780761509851

Publisher: Prima Publishing, 1997

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Many mothers can't let go when their daughters leave home. In fact, that's often when the real trouble begins. This life-saving book can help grown-up daughters redefine ther connection with their mothers and get on with their own lives.

Meddlesome moms come in many varieties. In this eye-opening book, a husband-and-wife team with expertise in psychotherapy and relationships divides them into ten categories. No doubt you'll recognize your mother in at least on of them—maybe more. These moms may mean well, but even their best intentions can wreak havoc in their daughters' lives. Their tactics might change as their daughters mature, but the relationship remains unhealthy—and often mired in the negative patterns that are passed down from generation to generation.

And that may be the greatest danger posed by poor mother-daughter relations—that you will repeat the mistakes you learned from your mother's example. Those mistakes can eventually affect your relations with friends, lovers, husbands, and, ultimately, your own daughter.

Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazy can help you break that futile, discouraging cycle. The expert insights and down-to-earth advice you find here will show you how to step out of the wreckage of failed relationships and seize the freedom to be yourself and make your own decisions

About the Authors
Susan Simon Cohen, C.S.W., is a respected psychotherapist with over 25 years of private practice in New York City. Edward M. Cohen is a journalist whose articles on relationships have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Parenting, and Child magazines. The Cohens received the Author Recognition Award from the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health of New York for Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazy.

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Review:

Mother and daughters--the classic duo--long the target of stand-up comedians and sitcoms. The authors of Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazy, a husband and wife team (she's the psychotherapist; he's the journalist), approach this often difficult dynamic with a sense of drama and the gift of clarity. They created 10 personality categories from clients' stories--The Narcissist, The Yenta, The Smother Mother, The Ostrich, to name a few. "If you can spot your mother in one of these," the Cohens write, "you might be able to gain some objectivity, start seeing the patterns, and watch with a calmer eye."

First comes the recognition that an entrenched pattern between mother and daughter has roots in the mother's childhood. But the book's focus is on the present, not the past. It's written adult daughters suffering from an unhealthy bond as they themselves seek to be healthy mothers to their daughters.

The books' credo is a harsh truth that soothes--"Adult children who keep trying to 'make it' with inadequate, unloved, and unloving parents are like people who go to a vegetarian restaurant and demand roast beef. The parents on whom they make demands for enlightened parenting never got it from their own parents. They do not have it in stock and they are not able to provide it for their children." If you feel the victim of your mother's love or if you always blame yourself for never living up to Mother's wishes, then Mothers Who Drive Their Daughters Crazywill help you to grow up--and out--of unproductive, painful cycles.

From the Back Cover:

"After all I've done for you, this is the thanks I get?"

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