It Never Ends

“An insightful look at the relationships between senior mothers and their middle-aged daughters . . . An important personal and sociological perspective on women’s lives.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A brave book, and one that I admire―a book that will help many aging mothers feel less alone and lead to more open exploration, both in literature and in life.”
—Ellen Bass, poet and author of Like a Beggar and coauthor of The Courage to Heal

As mothers and daughters age, their relationship shifts and changes in complex and often demanding ways. In It Never Ends, women speak openly about the heartaches and satisfactions of mothering midlife daughters, revealing the issues that arise, the ongoing effects of the past on the present, and the varied and often invisible ways in which they continue mothering. Some describe how they silence themselves to avoid their daughters’ impatience or disapproval, and how this self-silencing makes them feel unknown and unseen; some struggle with sorrow and guilt about what is missing from the relationship; and still others accept their inevitable limitations, forgive themselves and their daughters for mistakes made, and grow to more fully appreciate their deep bond.

Author: Sandra Butler and Nan Fink Gefen

Publication Date: October 10, 2017

Categories: Award-Winning, Fall 2017, Non-fiction

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About the Author

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2018 IBPA Ben Franklin Awards Finalist in Psychology

“An insightful look at the relationships between senior mothers and their middle-aged daughters . . . An important personal and sociological perspective on women’s lives.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A brave book, and one that I admire―a book that will help many aging mothers feel less alone and lead to more open exploration, both in literature and in life.”
—Ellen Bass, poet and author of Like a Beggar and coauthor of The Courage to Heal

“A rich, thoughtful, multi-layered look into the ways that mothers experience their relationships with their middle-aged daughters variously with love, joy, fulfillment, sorrow, anguish, and longing . . . a warm, clearly written, sorely needed exploration of a topic of profound importance.”
—Paula J. Caplan, PhD, author of The New Don’t Blame Mother: Mending the Mother-Daughter Relationship and Associate, W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, Harvard University

“A book to learn from and savor. The complex, nuanced stories of these women’s relationships with their adult daughters over time form the core of this revealing book as the authors probe the mothers’ yearnings for intimacy, issues of distance and alienation, and modes of forgiveness and renewal.”
—Joyce Antler, author of You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother and Professor Emerita, Brandeis University

“An important work. For every second-wave feminist, this book is a continuation of the consciousness started in the 1960s, and an expansive and intimate story for anyone who has been or intends to be a mother.”
—Ruth Rosen, author of The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America

About the Author

Sandra Butler is the author of Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest. Her second book, Cancer in Two Voices, coauthored with Barbara Rosenblum, was the winner of the 1991 Lambda Literary Award. She is also the co-producer of the award-winning documentaries Cancer in Two Voices and Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House. She has two middle-aged daughters and a rich community of women friends.

Nan Fink Gefen is the author of Stranger in the Midst: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery, Discovering Jewish Meditation, and Clear Lake: A Novel, winner of the IndieFab Gold Award for general fiction. After fifteen years in practice as a psychotherapist, she became the cofounding publisher in 1986 of Tikkun magazine, a journal of politics, culture, and society. In 2007 she founded Persimmon Tree: An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty, where she remains as publisher. Nan lives with her husband in Berkeley CA. Their blended family includes seven children and ten grandchildren.