Altered Loves: Mothers and Daughters During Adolescence - Softcover

"An extraordinary book that speaks subtly and with great originality to the intricate dynamics of mother-daughter relationships during adolescence. I can't think of a better book for professionals or parents who wish to understand these matters."

-- Nancy J. Chodorow

Author of Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud & Beyond

"Her eloquent message is reassuring to battle-weary veterans on both sides: peace is possible."

-- Newsweek

Terri Apter is a Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge. She is the author of Why Women Don't Have Wives: Professional Success and Motherhood. She lives with her husband and two teenage daughters in Cambridge, England.

Are mothers jealous of their developing daughters? Is an early mother-child bond severed during adolescence and never formed again? What does adolescence feel like to a girl?

Drawing on detailed interviews with mothers and daughters from Terri Apter's research in Great Britain and America, and from recent psychological studies of family interaction, Altered Loves is a frank, moving, and insightful examination of this crucial time in a woman's life. Apter shows that contrary to the classical view of adolescence as a stage in which daughters reject their mothers, adolescent daughters often remain strongly attached to them. The strife that characterizes this period is actually the result of trying to renegotiate a valued relationship.

Beautifully written, Altered Loves explodes conventional myths and theories about mother-daughter relationships and offers new and valuable insights that will help mothers remember and daughters understand the delicate, painful, and complex process of becoming a woman.