Deborah Tannen's #1 New York Times bestseller You Just Don't Understand
revolutionized communication between women and men. Now, in her most
provocative and engaging book to date, she takes on what is potentially
the most fraught and passionate connection of women's lives: the
mother-daughter relationship.
It was Tannen who first showed us that men and women speak different
languages. Mothers and daughters speak the same language-but still often
misunderstand each other, as they struggle to find the right balance
between closeness and independence. Both mothers and daughters want to
be seen for who they are, but tend to see the other as falling short of
who she should be. Each overestimates the other's power and
underestimates her own.
Why do daughters complain that their mothers always criticize, while
mothers feel hurt that their daughters shut them out? Why do mothers and
daughters critique each other on the Big Three-hair, clothes, and
weight-while longing for approval and understanding? And why do they
scrutinize each other for reflections of themselves?
Deborah Tannen answers these and many other questions as she explains
why a remark that would be harmless coming from anyone else can cause an
explosion when it comes from your mother or your daughter. She examines
every aspect of this complex dynamic, from the dark side that can shadow
a woman throughout her life, to the new technologies like e-mail and
instant messaging that are transforming mother-daughter communication.
Most important, she helps mothers and daughters understand each other,
the key to improving their relationship.
With groundbreaking insights, pitch-perfect dialogues, and deeply moving
memories of her own mother, Tannen untangles the knots daughters and
mothers can get tied up in. Readers will appreciate Tannen's humor as
they see themselves on every page and come away with real hope for
breaking down barriers and opening new lines of communication.
Eye-opening and heartfelt, You're Wearing That? illuminates and enriches
one of the most important relationships in our lives.
"Tannen analyzes and decodes scores of conversations between moms and
daughters. These exchanges are so real they can make you squirm as you
relive the last fraught conversation you had with your own mother or
daughter. But Tannen doesn't just point out the pitfalls of the
mother-daughter relationship, she also provides guidance for changing
the conversations (or the way that we feel about the conversations)
before they degenerate into what Tannen calls a mutually aggravating
spiral, a "self-perpetuating cycle of escalating responses that become
provocations." - *The San Francisco Chronicle
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