The authors discuss the ramifications of the diethylstilbestrol (DES) experience in mothers given DES during pregnancy, in their daughters who suffer the sequelae, and in the relationship between these mothers and daughters. Apparently, reproductive difficulties occurred in fifty to sixty per cent in these daughters, "benign" vaginal and cervical adenosis occurred in ninety per cent, and there is increased risk of cervical carcinoma. Mother-daughter relationships are complicated by the fact that mothers, providers of "early tender care," have unwittingly brought pain and disability to their daughters in the most basic areas of feminine identification: sexuality and motherhood. The authors, in yet another blow to the theory of penis envy in women, demonstrate through fantasies and concerns of DES daughters that girls fear primarily the loss of what they have, namely vagina and ovaries, rather than mourning the absence of a penis they never owned.