Brings together feminist and psychoanalytic contributions to the good parenting debate. Authors discuss dependency, anxiety and gender relations and examine what it feels like to mother amid the pressures of contemporary life.

Wendy Hollway is Reader in Gender Relations at the University of Leeds.,
Brid Featherstone is Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Bradford.

Chapter 1 Introduction, Brid Featherstone; Chapter 2 The production and purposes of maternal ambivalence, Rozsika Parker; Chapter 3 Fathers' ambivalence (too), Stephen Frosh; Chapter 4 The maternal bed, Wendy Hollway; Chapter 5 Mothers and daughters within a changing world, Sheila Ernst; Chapter 6 Susie Orbach talking to Wendy Hollway about mothers, parenting, gender development and therapy; Chapter 7 The heaven and hell of mothering, Ros Coward; Chapter 8 In the company of women, Paddy Maynes, Joanna Best; Chapter 9 Part ing is such sweet sorrow, Caroline Owens; Chapter 10 Group-analytic psychotherapy, Sheila Ernst; Chapter 11 'I wouldn't do your job!', Brid Featherstone;