A daughter is to become a mother, and her upbringing is to prepare for that. ... She knows she had better learn well, for after the relatively forgiving apprenticeship under her mother, she will have to meet the exceedingly rigid, usually waspish, and all too often brutal, standards of a mother-in-law. Only after the children are raised and married off does a woman begin to enjoy the fruits of love " from the children, now parents themselves, who gratefully realize what she gave them, and from a husband whose years if not his attitudes force him into co-dependence as his body gets frail ...

• Word Count: 3535
• Approx Pages: 14