Summary

More than a family memoir, Mama’s Girl gives voice to the first generation of African-Americans to come of age in the post-Civil Rights era.  Chambers’s account of her relationship with her mother brings to life all the promise, conflict, and unanswered questions that accompany this time:  how to navigate the gulf between a mother’s hopes and a daughter’s ambition; how to leave home without leaving behind those you love; how to accept what you’ve been given when you want more than your mother can give.  Mama’s Girl tells the story of a daughter’s resolute journey toward self-discovery, understanding, forgiveness, and, for her mother, a love supreme.

Recommended by: Bebe Moore Campbell

“ ... for any daughter who has ever loved and blamed Mama in the same anguished breath, ever pushed Mama away while yearning for her embrace.”

Author Biography

Veronica Chambers is a former editor at The New York Times Magazine and Premiere, and is currently a contributing editor at Glamour, where she was named one of the top ten college women of 1990.  She is the coauthor, with John Singleton, of Poetic Justice, and a frequent contributor to a number of publications.  Chambers, who has held a Freedom Forum Fellowship at Columbia University, lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

Topics to Consider

In what sense is Veronica Chambers a “mama’s girl”?  Can the same be said of all women?

In the acknowledgment, Chambers thanks her mother for “not minding that I put all of our business on the street.”  If you were her mother, how would you feel about the book?

In chapter one, Chambers, as a child trying to get her mother’s attention, thinks “it's always some other time with her.”  Yet she reveals that to her “my mother is everything.”  How can these feelings co-exist?

What lessons did Chambers learn from the men in her life?  What hold did they have on her, especially her father?

Chambers believed that “one day, I was going to make it out of these bad neighborhoods and these piss-poor schools where I had to beg for real work.  I knew my mother wasn’t going to help me, even if I didn’t know why.”  Where did Veronica’s determination come from?  Why didn’t her mother support her?

On what does Chambers model her own behavior?  Dreams, trust and charm all play a part in her environment growing up.  What role do these factors play in her mature life?

Chambers concludes that “I am the woman I am today because of her” [her mother].  Given what the book reveals, how much truth do you see in this statement?

When Veronica’s mother finally hugged her “and did not let go,” did she redeem herself for the times she did not hug her or ask her to come home?  Would redemption be at all available to her father?

What gifts does Veronica’s mother give her?  What does she withhold?  What did Veronica teach her mother?

What commentary does the story of Veronica Chambers make on the larger issue of nature versus nurture?

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