Sara's mother taught her to play two instruments. Similarly, Sara, obviously an outstanding student, credits her pre-school reading experience as an advantage that helped her academically. When asked what helped her read so early, she explained that her mother had taught her.

Music and academic ability are two strong points of pride and importance to Sara. Both were taught to her by her mother and yet she never cites these skills when asked about her mother's role.

As women, we are fearful of following our mothers' recipe for life, if in fact it produces values, behaviours and a life style that is inferior to men's. To emulate our mothers, who have earned no entitlement to pension, no sick days or vacation pay, no gold watch, and have been taught to sacrifice for others, may be a poor investment. To say the least, we may avoid seeing the comparisons between mothers and ourselves. We may hold our mothers responsible for the confusion that living with inequality has generated. As Adrienne Rich has written.

We are, none of us "either" mothers or daughters; to our amazement, confusion, and greater complexity, we are both. To accept and integrate and strengthen both the mother and the daughter in ourselves is no easy matter, because patriarchal attitudes have encouraged us to split, to polarize these images, and to project all unwanted guilt, anger, shame, power, freedom, onto the "other" woman.

(Adrienne Rich, 1976: 253).

Many of the women interviewed could be interpreted as ignoring parallels between themselves and their mothers even when the comparison was flattering. Bev explains that her mother had a great passion for ceramic dolls:

She liked to make them out of moulds, liked to paint and dress them and she would sew everything for them by hand and they never once talked back to her and they never once disagreed with her or gave her any problem, she was in total control. I felt she wanted me to be like a ceramic doll- you know, to accept all her values and to be something that I was not I guess (p. 8 1.30).

Two interesting skills appear related to Bev's mother. First, although Bev can design and make her own quilted cushions, does needlework, refinishes furniture and actually takes classes at the Craft School, she strongly asserts, "I cannot do crafts". The term "crafts" means something very specific to Bev. She does not see a parallel between her own creative work and her mother's "crafts".

Bev also discusses her ability to influence others but she recognizes it as "not always a positive thing".

...I do like to be in control of things sometimes and I find to be in control in certain situations, I will try to influence somebody and I try to influence them in such a way that there is no resistance...(p. 101.24).

Perhaps Bev is afraid of using her ability (which she acknowledges as a powerful and well-developed skill) to exert influence in a negative way; the way she perceives that her mother did. She does not view her mother's ability as a good communication skill or as intelligence or as deserving admiration from others or in any way a strength or positive attribute. Instead, Bev credits all of her positive development to her father.

I can remember really studying how he (her father) was with people and really taking it all in and noticing how he did this and that. And sort of analyzing the components of his inter-personal skills although I didn't realize what I was doing at the time. My father was a very social, a very gregarious man. He could make anyone feel comfortable. (p.12 1.5)

Bev did not realize when she was younger that her mother was shy and had a "feeling of inadequacy with her social skills". "My father was so gregarious that he compensated for my mother's shyness...to go out socially...always brought about a big migraine" (for mother).