Cherishing Our Daughters: How Parents Can Raise Girls to Become Strong and Loving Women

When the little princess is born in Grimm's "Sleeping Beauty," her ecstatic parents host a banquet and invite 12 fairies to bring gifts--life-affirming wishes--for their daughter's life. Imagining these gifts, the tools girls need to become strong, loving women, is the premise of Cherishing Our Daughters, a thought-provoking and compassionate book by Evelyn Bassoff (Mothers and Daughters, Mothering Ourselves, and Between Mothers and Sons). Bassoff, a clinical psychologist, recognizes that nourishing and raising daughters through their adolescence in today's world is a terrible and terrific challenge, and that parents of daughters, without access to fairy godmothers, must take it upon themselves to shape their daughters. Each chapter focuses on a "gift"--"Mother's Devotion," "Father's Care," "Respect," "Wholeness," "Courage"--and uses parent and daughter experiences plus Bassoff's own thoughtful and often profound insights to explore the challenges of raising a daughter.