I Am My Mother's Daughter: Making Peace With Mom--Before It's Too Late

241 Pages·2006·0.57 MB·English

by  Iris Krasnow

SELF-HELP / PSYCHOLOGY “Poignant, wise, and thought-provoking, IAm My Mother’s Daughter
is sure to resonate with female readers of all ages…Offering invaluable advice on
What would you tell your mother if you could
how to negotiate this delicate territory, Krasnow’s latest is a sensitively written book
tell her anything? Why wait? about compromise and reconciliation.”—Bookpage
IRIS KRASNOW—mother, daughter, and best-selling author of Surrendering to
Marriage—tackles the toughest relationships in the lives of many grown women: the
mother-daughter bond. Drawing on the collective wisdom of more than a hundred
midlife daughters, Krasnow’s bracing book offers fresh prescriptions on how to move
beyond old wounds and forge a healthier, happier relationship with the woman who
knows you better and probably loves you more than anyone else.
“KRASNOW has some wise and touching things to say about ‘the importance of meet-
ing our parents with surrender and softened hearts while we have them within reach.’
Her book holds out hope for a new openness between mothers and daughters while
each generation grows older in the other’s company.” —Washington Post Bookworld
“IRIS KRASNOW’S book has a lofty goal—the reconciliation of mothers and daughters.
She writes with warmth, wisdom, and sympathy about our eternal struggles to love and
understand each other. It’s comforting to know our problems are like those of other moth-
ers and daughters and that healing is possible.”
—Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Opheliaand Another Country
“The author has become a TV-talk-showfavorite because of her sage advice.” —TIME
“The book’s poignant stories, which flow like a novel, illustrate the possibility of
daughters breaking free of the bad feelings they’ve accumulated over the decades.
Keep a box of tissues handy.” —Palm BeachPost
IRIS KRASNOW is a journalism professor in the School of
Communication at American University. The best-selling
author of Surrendering to Marriage and Surrendering to
Motherhood, she has been a guest on Oprah, CNN, The
Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show,
and NPR’s All Things Considered. Krasnow lives with her
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O husband and four sons in Annapolis, Maryland.
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Mary JGaectkteyt Ipmhaogteosg raph © Nicki Pardo/ ISBN-13: 978-0-465-03755-1 gloss coating
© ISBN-10: 0-465-03755-0
AMember of the Perseus Books Group
www.basicbooks.com
I Am My
Mother’s Daughter
Other books by Iris Krasnow
Surrendering to Motherhood
Surrendering to Marriage
Surrendering to Yourself
I Am My
Mother’s Daughter
Making Peace with Mom—
Before It’s Too Late
`
Iris Krasnow
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
Excerpts from Mother Love by Candance Flynt. Copyright © 1987 by Can-
dace Flynt. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Copyright © 2006by Iris Krasnow
Hardcover published in 2006 by Basic Books
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Paperback published in 2007 by Basic Books
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of
this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.
Designed by Jeff Williams
Set in Fairfield Light by the Perseus Books Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krasnow, Iris.
I am my mother's daughter : making peace with mom before it's too late /
Iris Krasnow.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
HC: ISBN-13: 978-0-465-03754-4; ISBN-10: 0-465-03754-2
1. Mothers. 2. Daughters. 3. Mothers and daughters. 4. Inter-personal
conflict. I. Title.
HQ759.K7242005
306.874'3—dc22
2005035494
PBK: ISBN-13: 978-0-465-03755-1; ISBN-10: 0-465-03755-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
For my mother
Helene Steinberg Krasnow

Contents `
Prologue ix
1 I Love You, I Hate You, I Am You 1
2 Letting Go of the Fantasy Mom 19
3 Embracing Mother Dearest 47
4 Love, Rage, and Stomachaches 75
5 Growing Old Together 121
6 Guilt, Grief, and Moving On 151
7 Rebirth After Death 181
Bibliography 217
Acknowledgments 221

Prologue `
It’s a balmy afternoon in late May, and I am pushing my
mother in her wheelchair along the lakefront in Chicago, the
city where I was born fifty years ago and where she soon will
die. With unwavering courage, defying all odds, my mom,
Helene, survived the loss of her immediate family to the
Holocaust, the loss of her husband in 1986, and the recent
loss of her lower left leg. After this heroic marathon, she’s
now barely hanging on, plagued with infections, dementia,
and total exhaustion.
Yet, we are fully present in this moment and not dwelling
on her demise; the sun is brilliant and the breezes off Lake
Michigan are gently slapping us into sheer wakefulness. I
look down at my mother with the paisley pashmina draped
over her stump; she used to wear it as a shawl. Her cheeks
are flushed and she is smiling. May is the month when spring
is most saturated, the trees are thick, the flowers are lush. We
stop at a patch of tulips near Oak Street Beach, a triumph of
ix