It would be great to see more from PC in Salon. My situation is similar regarding tensions between mothers and daughters. I loathe my own mother with very good reason, and my oldest daughter loathes me, also with good reason. I have one daughter out of three that I get along with very well. Oddly enough, she was a very difficult child. It's not as interesting as this article, but misery does love company, not quite, but still. I loved it.

There was always a distance in Walker's works, a standing-off superiority. People like her don't relate to others minimally different from themselves, except to judge them.

Which is an apt epitaph for second-wave feminism.

Ms. Chesler- I have read some of your books (including Women and Madness, which was so enlightening for me) and really am a fan of your writing.

I like the part especially in this article where you said:

"Yes, and Alice did all the things that women like Judy don't want to do and can't do: Write great poems and novels, devote oneself to world work, crusade for human and women's rights. Rebecca: Trust me, a woman really cannot do both. The myth that we can is a dangerous one."

I agree, and thanks for writing this. I hope more young women realize this as well.

For a while I was very close friends with a woman who, in mid-life, finally found her calling. She started writing, opening a flood-gate of inspiration, declaring that she'd discovered why she was born. I was delighted. I encouraged her, and we had many discussions over several years about writing and the things she was creating. Then...she got pregnant. Everything else got thrown in the back seat, and despite years of cynical talk about parenthood and not wanting to even think about reproducing, suddenly there was no talking to her about it. She would not brook the merest hint that it might not be a good idea.

Guess what? She's miserable now. She loves her kid, but her writing has stalled, and the progress she does manage to make it slow and difficult, and she greatly resents the enormous effort she has to make at something that was so joyful and productive there for a while. I feel sorry for both her and her daughter, who will have to deal with all that pent-up resentment.

So many people think that we "second-wave" feminists rejected motherhood out of fear or distaste or bad experiences, but this is one aspect that many do not get - that one of the biggest reasons to take motherhood down from its holy pedestal is simply that it's not right for everyone. The crime of our culture in this regard is not that motherhood is prized, but that it is assumed to be the greatest and only worthwhile pursuit for women, and that is simply, flatly untrue. It is the greatest and only worthwhile pursuit for some women, not all. There is so much misery that comes of cramming yourself into that box when it doesn't fit, of assuming that because you're pregnant, you MUST give birth. Believe me, I've worked in social services, and have seen many, many women who should never have had children. It's more obvious with women who have great gifts to give the world and find themselves either swallowing the bitterness or throwing it at their kids, but it's just as true for women of more ordinary lives.

If we as a society would teach our kids how to look at themselves realistically and decide whether parenthood is right for them, and then refrain from judgment when they choose not to take it on (let ALONE adult women who choose so), there would be a lot less of this kind of unhappiness around.

Walker's The Way Forward is With A Broken Heart is one of my favorite titles ever, and a fine book too (a genre melder).

Sometime just for fun, check out the lyrics (or listen) to Tupac's "Dear Mama."

This is a sad story. I doesn't have to be this way...

Good lord, smearing her mother in public because she didn't keep the refrigerator stocked for precious little Rebecca??

I am no fan of many of the male-bashing aspects of second-wave feminism, but I don't see how ideology has much to do at all with Rebecca's whiny tirade. I assure her that there are plenty of mothers with no job at all who don't keep the fridge stocked, don't think their children are endlessly fascinating, and don't treat them like the center of universe. Which is basically what Rebecca is complaining about.

I read her essay, and 85% of it could have applied to my own childhood - powerful career mother who traveled often on business and had many other interests that had nothing to do with me, lots of time alone, shuttled between my parents' house after their divorce, etc. And it has never occurred to me to complain about any of that! Instead, I feel deep admiration for my mother, and lucky to have had a childhood that fostered independence -- it has served me quite well as an adult. I actually feel sorry for kids who had mothers that let motherhood completely consume their identity -- as adults, while they love their mothers very much, they also seem to view them as living security blankets.

Anyway, considering the truly horrific childhoods that many people in this world experience, it's pretty embarrassing to cry because you had to make your own sandwiches while your fabulous mother was out changing the world. And clearly her childhood must not have been that bad because look at Rebecca now: successful, accomplished, beautiful, and famous. I would be surprised if the son she's currently coddling (she can't let him go on a playdate?!?) ever achieves as much.

that famous men are given any more slack than women when it comes to having lovers (Bill Clinton, Woody Allen), and the archetype of the absent father is certainly loathed in our culture. Also, Rebecca Walker is an adult, and her mother owes her not love, money, support, or understanding. I hope she soon ceases to care about the actions of her mother.