Using a discourse analysis framework, I assert that mothers are constrained by cultural messages about "good" and "bad" mothering to "story" their lives acceptably, not necessarily accurately. The paper examines the toll that this takes on mothersand their loved ones. I then present several therapeutic techniques to help mothers resist problematic elements of the maternal discourse within which their subjective experience of themselves as mothers has formed.
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Kathy Weingarten (1995) studied this question.