Women of the fifties: Their past sexual experiences and current sexual attitudes in the context of mother/daughter relationships

As part of a study on sexual communication between mothers and daughters, 141 college-educated mothers of college-age daughters completed a questionnaire on their past sexual activities (including high school and college experiences, first love experience, first experience of intercourse, first and successive pregnancies, and birth of first child). Mothers also indicated the degree to which they had experienced 14 sex-related fears during college and at present. Several questions tapped present sexual attitudes concerning themselves and their daughters. Mothers were asked how they would feel if their daughters never married, never had children, or had a homosexual relation. The majority reported that their sexual attitudes had become more liberal since college and indicated that their daughters had influenced these attitudes. The majority also indicated they were satisfied with the current sexual communication with their daughters and with the mother/daughter relationship in general.This work was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation. Please address correspondence to Marilyn Yalom, Center for Research on Women, Serra House, Stanford, California 94305.