“Parents wrongly assume that their daughters live in a world similar to the one they experienced as adolescents. They are dead wrong. Their daughters live in a media-drenched world floded with junk values. As girls turn from their parents, they turn to this world for guidance about how to be an adult.”

“Yet the French have managed to be involved without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents." one Parisian mother tells me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time.”

“I do not know what happened with your parents or why they did what they did. But in all the world, I could have wished for no daughter but you.”

“Parents took honor from a daughter who was a teacher.”

“. . . when a mother shares adult concerns with her daughter, a healthy dependence becomes impossible; the daughter feels insecure and alone because she has no parent on whom she can depend.”

“for not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.”