Women who cannot connect to their mothers inevitably lose something in the way they view themselves, their skills and their work. This glimpse suggests that it is painful to connect to our mothers, that we are not encouraged to do so, and that unless we do, our daughters will be further removed from their maternal heritage. The result will be the loss of all that women truly create, apart from the myths, apart from revisions of ourselves and our modeling ourselves after men.

Women's learning is really a record of how women struggle, endure and survive our adaptation to men's work, men's education and a man's world. To learn about women, we need to know a great deal mare about mother's wit. From that understanding will come the revelation of how women truly work and learn-not a study of how women survive. Jess described her much-loved father as "ruler of the house". If we are to learn more about women we must do more than observe the servant in the ruler's house, we must look beyond the work she does for him. Daughters have observed their mothers in this perspective for centuries.

But, at the edge of adolescence, we find ourselves drawing back from our natural mothers as if by; a similar edict. It is toward men, henceforth, that our sensual and emotional energies are intended to .flow. The culture makes it clear that neither the black mother, nor the white mother, nor any of the other mothers, are 'worthy' of our profoundest love and loyalty. Women are made taboo to women-not just sexually, but as comrades, co- creators, conspirators. In A breaking this taboo, we are reuniting with our mothers; we are breaking this taboo. (Rich, 1976:255)

Bonnie Wood is studying towards an M.Ed. in Adult Education at the University of New Brunswick where she is researching maternal teaching and women's learning. She is an active member of Women Working with Immigrant Women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Marilyn. Women as Elders: The Feminist Politics of Aging. N.Y.: Harrington Park Press, Inc. 1986.

Cline, Sally and Dale Spender. Reflecting Men at Twice Their Natural Size. N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co. 1987.

Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born-Motherhood As Experience and Institution. N.Y.: W.W. Norton and Co. 1976.

Sanguiliano, Iris. In Her Time. N.Y.: Morrow Quill Paperbacks 1980.

Spender, Dale. Invisible Women. London: Redwood Bum Limited 1982.