Mothers And Daughters

Mothers and daughters who are best friends, wear matching clothes and go partying together sound like they need a trip to the psychologists, not to Las Vegas. But where is the fun in therapy shows? On VH1's new show, "Mama Drama," these mother daughter duos are all about fun. On Wednesday night's premiere episode, we meet five mother and daughter duos (one is a trio) who are sent to Vegas to party. Sharon and Ashley, the self-proclaimed showstoppers, are fighters. Gina and Debbie call themselves "dirty Jersey.

Mothers and daughters who are best friends, wear matching clothes and go partying together sound like they need a trip to the psychologists, not to Las Vegas. But where is the fun in therapy shows? On VH1's new show, "Mama Drama," these mother daughter duos are all about fun. On Wednesday night's premiere episode, we meet five mother and daughter duos (one is a trio) who are sent to Vegas to party. Sharon and Ashley, the self-proclaimed showstoppers, are fighters. Gina and Debbie call themselves "dirty Jersey.

When I opened my eyes, she was there. I saw her beautiful face bent over her needlepoint, engrossed, a faint smile on her lips, her blond hair picking up the morning rays through the dusty hospital window. It was a few years back when I had just had a serious back operation.No, it wasn't my mother beside me, it was my oldest daughter, and I was coming out of anesthesia. It was around the spring of the year. So I have been thinking about her, about how our roles became gradually reversed. She, the caretaker now, caring for me.She said, "I'm here, Mom," just as I had reassured her of my presence back when she was 7 and had just had her tonsils out: "I'm here, darling."

Their show is called "Mama Drama," but Gina Obrien and her daughter, Marcella Peters, don't quite act like drama queens. Unless you consider the clothes. You're pretty much forced to consider the clothes, which cry out for attention. The two wear matching outfits. All the time. Head to toe. From the artificial hibiscus flowers in their hair to their orange sandals (they have 225 matching pairs of shoes). And their matching mani-pedis. Pajamas? "Matchy-matchy," Obrien says Thursday afternoon in their Parkville home.

"Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and Daughters," by Erica Jong. HarperCollins. 312 pages. $24.95The title of Erica Jong's new novel might seem to be an oxymoron. But I believe that good fiction remembers, and memory benefits, from the spice of imagination. This blend is demonstrated with brio, in Jong's first novel, "Fear of Flying," which recounts the adventures of its heroine, a type of late 20th centuryAmerican-Jewish Moll Flanders."Inventing Memory," however, denies its title by being pure contrivance.

You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation Deborah Tannen Random House / 248 pages / $24.95 In her book You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen taught us that men and women do not speak the same language. When we talk, our words fly past each other, wide of their target. But when mothers and daughters talk, those words become arrows, each with the power to pierce the heart of the other. In You're Wearing That?, her latest book on the complexities of human conversation, Tannen asserts that the relationship between a mother and a daughter is the most passionate of a woman's life and the source of her deepest love and deepest anger - literally, the mother of all relationships.

It was a dark and stormy night in April -- but the traffic-stopping rain didn't prevent the moms and teen-age daughters of the Mount View Mother Daughter Book Club from sloshing into the Glenwood library for their monthly discussion. The evening's selection: The Amazon Papers by Beverly Keller. And the teens were pretty tough critics. "How many teens do you know use words like `obfuscate'?" asked Kim Sides, 15, who was there with her mother, Therese Sides. Even though this book wouldn't go down on the list as a favorite, their time together wasn't a total washout.

Their show is called "Mama Drama," but Gina Obrien and her daughter, Marcella Peters, don't quite act like drama queens. Unless you consider the clothes. You're pretty much forced to consider the clothes, which cry out for attention. The two wear matching outfits. All the time. Head to toe. From the artificial hibiscus flowers in their hair to their orange sandals (they have 225 matching pairs of shoes). And their matching mani-pedis. Pajamas? "Matchy-matchy," Obrien says Thursday afternoon in their Parkville home.

Denim gets better and softer with time. So does the fabric of the relationships between mothers and daughters in the times spent sharing games and secrets. Denim, the fabric of America's carefree hours, wears comfortably across the years and generations.

The Horizon Councils and Women's Giving Circle of Howard County will host a mother-daughter workshop, "Mean Girls: Queen Bees, Gamma Girls and Surviving the Female Hierarchy," at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Howard County Library's Miller branch, 9421 Frederick Road. Workshop will give mothers and daughters the opportunity to discuss the social issues and peer pressures on girls. Free. Call 410-313-1950 for more information.

The mother and daughter relax on a cushy sofa, laughing quietly as they speak of their unusual yet utterly normal life together. "Sometimes I get a little frustrated [with you], don't I, Talynn?" the mom asks. "Yes, but we always work it out," the 9-year-old replies, leaping onto Traci Lucien and applying a huge hug. "Nobody's taking my Mommy. She's tooken. We're together forever!" Talynn exclaims. It's an especially tender moment, considering the two met just two years ago. That was when Lucien, a single professional who was then 49, adopted Talynn (pronounced Tay-LINN )

By the time Jen Staab and Sam Hruz played in The Game for the first time, they knew all about the basketball rivalry between the Institute of Notre Dame and Mercy. They grew up hearing about the competition, the tradition and the school spirit surrounding what is as much an event as a basketball game, because their mothers also played in The Game, which will tip off for the 46th time Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Towson Center. "We talk about it all the time," said Hruz, a Mercy junior.

Just as the nation gets ready to celebrate Memorial Day, the 1729 Combat Sustainment Support Battalion of the Maryland National Guard, based in Havre de Grace, has shipped out for eventual deployment to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it seems like just the latest in an all-too-long line of deployments of our brave volunteers to fight in what has become this nation's longest running conflict. And it won't be the last. More of our brave sons, fathers, mothers and daughters will be headed overseas and into harm's way in the coming months, even as there is every reason to believe the foreign campaign of the War on Terror is coming to an end. In modern history, World War II has become the gold standard for how to end a conflict.

The Horizon Councils and Women's Giving Circle of Howard County will host a mother-daughter workshop, "Mean Girls: Queen Bees, Gamma Girls and Surviving the Female Hierarchy," at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Howard County Library's Miller branch, 9421 Frederick Road. Workshop will give mothers and daughters the opportunity to discuss the social issues and peer pressures on girls. Free. Call 410-313-1950 for more information.

They say that the work of a parent is never done. It just changes. It is a truism that carries a lot of baggage for those of us who came of age in the era of professional motherhood, when their report card might as well have been our report card. When we were only as happy as our most unhappy child. Now those children are young adults, and those hyper-involved chickens have come home to roost, especially in the always-fraught relationship between mothers and daughters. In a new book, "Too Close for Comfort?"

Moms, it's your weekend. And if you're the kind who wants to spend it having fun with the family - instead of holed up solo with a glass of wine and a good book - there are plenty of kid-friendly activities to choose from around town. You can explore the outdoor beauty at Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton and take a free tour of art depicting the roles of women at the Walters. Help your kids make your Mother's Day gift (hey, at least that way you're sure to get one) at a local library. Take in a concert that explores the relationships between mothers and daughters.

The way Mary Gamberdella remembers it, the argument was inevitable. The bride and her mother were getting along too well -- giggling and agreeing on everything from sending out ecru-colored invitations to serving oysters on the half shell.But then during a final dress fitting, the mother announced that she hated her daughter's hair. You ARE getting a perm before the wedding, she declared.The bride scowled. Angry words flew. And a fairy-tale time turned into a scene from a Bette Davis-Joan Crawford movie.

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS.Elena Bonner.Knopf.349 pages. $23.Although Elena Bonner gained fame as the wife -- now the widow -- of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, she already had lived an interesting life in interesting times before they met.Add to this a most remarkable memory, and a gift for writing, and one could expect a fascinating memoir. Unfortunately, "Mothers and Daughters" is merely good.One problem is that remarkable memory. "Mothers and Daughters" runs to more than 300 pages but deals almost entirely with her life only up to age 14. It begins when she is still in a high chair, age 2 or 3.Not only does she remember broad details of incidents, but she remembers small details, too: where they lived.

Mothers and daughters will discuss body image, self-esteem and the pressures on middle-school girls to conform to media images and peer pressure in a program at the Miller branch library, to be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 24. "Family Communication Night: How Do I Look? A Mother-Daughter Workshop on Body Image and the Pressure to be thin, `Hot,' and Perfect," will include a free dinner. The program, to be led by Lisa Morrell, adolescent counselor and founder of Health Integration, is designed for youth ages 11 to 15 and their parents.

Continuing their dream of living on a working farm, a mother and daughter run a 60-acre farm in Hydes dedicated to Guernsey cows, culinary herbs and hands-on education for children. Hanne Chason, 62, and her daughter, Jo-Ann Chason, 35, who is a horticulturist, do most of the farm work, rent the grounds for social events and give school tours in spring and fall. They grow plants in the winter in a greenhouse. ROHA Farm, named after Ron and Hanne Chason, overlooks Long Green Valley. The Chasons and their four daughters were living on 7 acres in Parkville when the old Kress Dairy Farm went to auction in 1989.