What emerged for me are stories of how women have modeled their lives after their fathers-adopting his style, his advice, his values as a standard. Only one of the nineteen women refers to her mother's influence. Nine attribute their father's influence as a major factor in the development of their own abilities and attitudes. Seven women speak of mother and father as parents and two did not mention either parent.

Women do not easily recognize their mother's abilities and skills. This lack of recognition of our mothers' learning may have a bearing on women's learning as we understand it now,

...if, in our eye, mother becomes less of a cardboard figure and more fully a person, can daughter be far behind? (Sanguiliano, 1980: 259).

Researching women's skills is like panning for gold. So little language exists to describe women's wisdom that it is difficult to recognize when we discover something of value. As Sandra, one of the women interviewed, describes:

We were talking about making soup and what you put in soup and that they were talking about putting in celery stalks and putting in leaves, making sure you put in the leaves.. I do that and I know I do that because my mother did that; so, of course, that is the way recipes get handed down through generations because of what you have seen your mother do. (page 15 1.35 Women's Learning and Women's Work, 1990.)

We learn from our mothers almost without realizing it. What other recipes have mothers handed down across the generations?

Many of the women interviewed suggested that somehow the recipes from their mothers had been altered or lost. For example, Sara credits her father and "different teachers" as encouraging her to do well academically. When questioned concerning her mother's role Sara said: "I don't really know. I don't think she...discouraged me, I don't think she really encouraged me..." (p.51.20).

Sara felt that she was not close to her mother.

...my mother and I are just starting to try to rebuild that relationship. She was very present in my life and always has been but not in necessarily, I think, healthy ways for either of us and so we are just trying to work on that now.

Martine Thériault

Later she discusses the importance of music in her life. She feels it really helped her "centre" herself and was therapeutic for her.

I guess it (music) is really important to me because it really allows me to keep in touch with my core and be creative because so much of my life is very task oriented where you have to be efficient and you have to think about things very concretely...(Music) allows me to be more free- flowing, expressive kind of thing, which helps to balance things.