THE CONVERSATION BEGINS: MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS TALK ABOUT LIVING FEMINISM, By Christina Looper Baker and Christina Baker Kline, Bantam Books 1996, 387 pages hardcover, $22.95.

Many mothers choose not to teach their daughters the f” word these days. They think it’s offensive, embarrassing, unnecessary, passe.

But ask the women who were heading up the women’s liberation movement in the middle of this century, and they’ll tell you the f” word best known as feminism saved their lives, gave them new power and meaning, and changed the world. They not only taught their daughters the word feminism; they showed them what a mighty word it can be.

Christina Looper Baker and Christina Baker Kline are one of those mother-daughter teams that span several decades from 1950s housewives to 1990s supermoms in their experiences. They each have an interest in women’s issues and in writing. Christina, the mother, teaches English at the University of Maine and has four daughters. Tina, the daughter, teaches writing at New York University and has a young son. Both have published books separately and now have a joint publication, The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk About Living Feminism.”

The book is a collection of testimonies made by 23 feminist mothers (born between 1912 and 1951) and their daughters, all of whom agreed to talk about how feminism changed their lives and affected their relationships as mother and daughter. For 18 months, the authors interviewed women who have been variously involved with feminist activism, both at the national and grass-roots level. Each mother wrote about her activism and motherhood. Each daughter and sometimes two wrote about having a spokeswoman for a mom.

Some of the mothers, such as writer Tillie Olsen, psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes and U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, are famous. Others don’t have the name recognition but have played important roles with Ms. magazine, the National Organization for Women, or the Black Panthers. Most have formidable educational backgrounds and hotshot careers. Others didn’t go to college and have quietly made major contributions to their cities or to government policy regarding women.

All of the mothers and many of the daughters belong to the 85 percent of American women who have children. And although for many of them, childbirth was a confusing addition to their feminism, they all have found a way to stretch themselves to fit into both roles. The earlier generation didn’t find it as easy as the more contemporary one, but that stands to reason. For most middle class women in this decade, it has become more acceptable and therefore easier to be both a mother and a career woman. That’s one of the esteemed check marks of feminism.

The best message that this book has to offer is that feminism and motherhood can live sometimes peaceably, sometimes traumatically in the same woman, and can, in fact, add to the strength of daughters (not to mention sons and spouse).

That’s not to say that sacrifices weren’t made along the way. Some of these mothers left their daughters. Some missed out on the chance to see a first step or a school performance. Some put their work first. And all of them turned to parents, spouses, lovers, friends or colleagues for help. Easy is not a word that comes to mind for any of them.

The straightforward style of the writing and the honesty with which these women young and old recount their lives reveal the complexity of womanhood in America. Even more importantly, the book shows the multifarious face of feminism. Black, white, Asian, American Indian, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, married, single, elderly or teen-age, these women have many approaches to getting what they want. Some live feminism as an upper middle class white woman’s movement; others experience it as womanists, a term taken up by many women of color. In this way, The Conversation Begins” is not only a case study of nearly two dozen families, but a meditation on the history of feminism in the past 30 years.

In the introduction, the authors explain that they allowed all the participants to have a say in the final drafts of their contributions. One can’t help but wonder what was edited out that might also be illuminating and instructive.

The f” word, which has suffered a bad rap under the conservatism of recent politics and patriarchal paranoia, begins to recover some of its integrity in these stories. Not all of these women are likable. Not all of their daughters are mobilized or sympathetic.

Yet they have all been deeply affected by feminism, and it’s important to review the reasons the women’s movement has been remarkable and necessary, and what some of the regrets are, too. With a feminist history that joins the political and the personal in the most intimate of ways, Christina Looper Baker and Christina Baker Kline offer a reflective and hopeful dialogue about the past, the present and the future of feminism.