Photo by Yaoqui Lai. Copyright free. Unsplash.com

In the years since I researched and wrote Mean Mothers, I’ve talked to women about our shared experiences. Every woman’s story is different; perhaps the greatest commonality is the discovery that each of us is not alone, that we are not the only girls or women to have had mothers who can’t or won’t love them. The taboos about “dissing” our mothers, and the myths of motherhood which portray all mothers as loving, serve to isolate unloved daughters. That discovery lifts part of the hurt and burden, but not all of it.

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