Mother - Daughter Book Group

I’m in a mother-daughter book group, sans daughters. 

We began the group many years ago when our daughters were in 4th grade I believe. We had initially met at a Mothers Center when our daughters were infants. We were all from different towns nearby, so our daughters had new friends that weren’t from their town or school. 

We would meet at each other’s houses and discuss books, eat pizza, and talk about growing up issues. I remember we read Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, and the girls were kind of embarrassed to talk about the issues raised in that book. Another book we read was Moon Over Crete, and we cooked up a delicious Greek meal. We read lots and lots of books over the years, like Esperanza Rising and Stargirl. I even presented a workshop about our group at an NCTE convention with my daughter in tow when she was thirteen. It was entitled “The Mother-Daughter Book Group: Engaging and Empowering Our Daughters.” It was a fun trip to Atlanta.

At some point in each book group gathering, the girls would leave us to talk amongst themselves, and we mothers did too. We shared stories and advice as we navigated through the challenging stages of their adolescence and this oftentimes crazy world. I remember meeting a few days before they were about to go off to college. We were trying to think about what other words of wisdom could we impart on them before they go away and laughed that it was probably too late. We laughed through our nervousness. 

We still meet, but it’s just us five mothers, as all the daughters have moved away. They have varied careers, some have married, some have kids. We do still manage to keep in touch. But it is only the five of us that continue to read books together and share our joys and sorrows as we grow older.