Most women want to be good daughters. I certainly know that I did and that striving toward that goal was very important to me. Joyce Maynard’s book, The Good Daughters, addresses this struggle of being a “good daughter” and facing the world as your own person.
The book follows two girls born on the same day (July 4, 1950) in the same hospital in New Hampshire. Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson are very different from each other, and in many, many ways, from their families. As I read the book, I thought about how, despite the different paths we take, there are so many universal experiences that we have: finding our voice as women, finding (and sometimes losing) true love, caring for our families, coping with our families, keeping family secrets and dealing with their impact. The book made me tear up – often – as Ruth and Dana went through the joys and sorrows of life, and its ups and downs. I could relate as they learned that not everything is as it seems on the surface, and that the only constant is creating our own community and finding our own way.
