Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Chorney, Tatjana

Book Reviews 
readable and informative and would recommend it to professionals working 
with families, parents, and parents-to-be. 
Women and Children First 
Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy 
Sharon M.  Meagher and Patrice DiQuinzio, eds. 
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005 
Reviewed by Tatjana Chorney 
This collection of twelve essays is an important contribution to feminist 
scholarship and contemporary cultural and political discourses shaping how we 
see mothers and children in the context of citizenship. The essays use avariety 
of feminist theoretical frameworks to analyze the rhetoric-of heretofore 
unexamined American and Canadian public policies proposing "to put women 
and children first." The essays reveal the paternalistic and "masculinist" logic 
underlying these policies whose real effect is disempowerment-sometimes 
harm-to those they ostensibly seek to protect. The book demonstrates in 
compelling ways that individual realities are linked to wider social realities, and 
advocates greater critical scrutiny of how the discourses of modern liberal 
individualism often obscure this crucial interdependence. 
The collection is divided into five sections. Part one, "(Mis)Representations 
of the Domestic Sphere: State Interventions," features discussions focused on 
the co-optation of feminist discourse in the rhetoric of American homeland 
security and defense against terrorism; the oppressive and exclusionary nature 
of the heteronormative family ideology in public policy as manifested in the 
Census; and the use of international human rights discourse in domestic 
violence cases whose rhetoric erases power differentials, reinforces constructs 
of middle-class motherhood, and calls for increased surveillance of poor 
families. 
Of the two essays in part two, "Medical Discourses and Social Ills," one 
documents through cases studies the tragic effects of the promotion of a rigid 
conception of sex and gender for parents of "intersexed" children; the other 
analyzes depression in women as a "social" rather than an individual phenom- 
enon, finding its causes in contemporary culture whose persistent patriarchal 
values continue to devalue and debase women and mothers in ways that 
"colonize psychic space" (100). 
The essays in part three, "Subjects of Violence," reveal how a culture with 
traditional masculinist values celebrates violence when used "properly" in the 
service of protection, without acknowledging that "protection and predation 
are intimately linked to one another" (123), as well as remind us-by uncovering 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering ( 361 
Book Reviews 
the ambiguity in Battered Women Syndrome-that domestic violence is a 
social problem, not located exclusively in individual pathologies. 
Parts four and five are more directly focused on the theoretical and practical 
implications of motherhood. In part four, "Mothers, Good and Bad: 
Marginalking Mothers and Idealizing Children," the authors show how the 
rhetoric of child protection agencies in Canada implies that the women referred 
to as "toxic moms" produce children who end up in the sex trade, and explore 
the disagreement in public policy over what counts as harm and under what 
circumstances a mother should be held accountable for making risky choices 
during pregnancy. The authors of essays in part five, "Protesting Mothers: 
Politics under the Sign of Motherhood," argue that motherhood did not afford 
women a platform from which they could articulate a meaningful critique of the 
military state during the Gulf War, and that the deployment of the "essential" 
motherhood discourse during the Million Mom March in 1995 obscured the 
extent to which "individualism itself defines subjectivity in terms of situations 
and experiences more typical of men than of women" (229). 
AU twelve essays "interrupt dominant discourses by deconstructing their 
logic" (133). Women and Children First, a book1 highly recommend, offers a set 
of much needed perspectives on contemporary society. 
The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars 
Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? 
Miriam Peskowitz. 
Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2005 
Reviewed by Jessica Smartt Gullion 
Ifthe media are to be believed, there is an ongoing battle between stay-at-home 
mothers and working mothers. Which mother is better? Who provides the best 
environment for her children? Mothers are constantly judging each other in the 
quest to be declared the best. 
In The Truth Behindthe Mommy Wars, Miriam Peskowitz deconstructs the 
much-hyped Mommy Wars. In truth, writes Peskowitz, mothers cannot be 
divided into two neat, opposing groups. Many mothers alternate between 
staying at home full-time, working for pay full-time outside the home, and 
taking on part-time paid employment, sometimes done at home and some- 
times done outside the home. The result of this fragmentation is that mothers 
divided do not band together and insist on social changes that would benefit all 
parents. Yet, as Peskowitz demonstrates, social change is needed. 
Public discourse has relegated the subject of parenting to the realms of 
personal choice and private responsibility. Yet the "choice" to parent has 
362 1 Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 


English

Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric and Public Policy

Friedman, May

Book Reviews 
Fear of Food 
A Diary of Mothering 
Carol Bacchi 
North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2003 
Reviewed by May Friedman 
In Fear $Food, feminist academic Carol Bacchi records her extremely personal 
journey through the first year of her son's life. In doing so, Bacchi exposes some 
of the pervasive challenges facing mothers. The details of Bacchi's situation- 
her status as an older, single mother and the specific physical and medical 
challenges of her son-provide the context for this moving story. 
Within the first months after his birth, Bacchi's son, Stephen, faced a 
number of medical challenges that resulted in his total rejection of food. In 
addition to the usual rigours of new motherhood (sleep deprivation, physical 
discomfort, overwhelming emotional reactions) Bacchi was facedwith the very 
real possibility of her son wasting away. When she sought help, she was 
patronized by medical doctors who concluded that Stephen's major problem 
was that he had a "tense mother." 
The great strength of this book is Bacchi's voice. Large portions of the 
book are direct transcriptions of Bacchi's diary and the feeding and sleeping 
records she rigorously kept in the year following her son's birth. These accounts 
are interspersed with her current perceptions, ten years later. Bacchi atlows the 
reader to eavesdrop on the inchoate panic of her voice throughout this 
harrowing crisis, and balances its visceral narrative with her more polished, 
present-day analysis ofthe past. Throughout the book, Bacchi achieves a skilful 
mediation between her obvious adoration of her infant son with her terror and 
resentment at the ways motherhood has overtaken her life. She offers these 
contradictions to the reader in order to "prick the balloon of idealized 
mothering which makes it so difficult to admit, to oneself and to others, that 
mothering can be frightening exhausting and even, at times, totally demoral- 
izing" (xii). Bacchi's testimony is even more moving since it comes through her 
experience as an academic: as an "expert," her bewilderment in coping with her 
young son is intensified. 
Ifthe strength ofBacchi's text is in its intensely personal form, it is perhaps 
this same trait that leaves the book open to criticism. Bacchi is a relatively well- 
known feminist academic. Her past books include The Politics ofA@rmative 
Action (1996) and Women, Policy andPolitics: The Construction ofPolicy Problems 
(1999). Given her background as a critical feminist author, it is somewhat 
frustrating that Fear ofFood remains so intensely personal a memoir. Tantdiz- 
ing glimpses are given of an analysis of the larger context within which 
mothering occurs. Overall, however, Bacchi skirts the issues that underpin her 
376 I Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 
Book Reviews 
story, including the absence of both formal and informal supports for new 
mothers, and the systemic hostility faced by mothers whose children present 
challenges that cannot easily be solved. Ideally, Bacchi will use this memoir as 
a starting point for further analysis into the issues hinted at within the text. 
Despite this criticism, Fear of Food is a moving and well-paced text that will 
resonate strongly for many readers. 
Adopting Maternity: 
White Women Who Adopt Transracially or 
Transnationally 
Nora Rose Moosnick 
Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2004 
Reviewed by Dorsia Smith Silva 
In AdoptingMaternity: White Women WhoAdopt Transracially or Transna tionally, 
independent scholar Nora Rose Moosnick examines how the social construc- 
tions of race, gender, and class are connected to White women who engage in 
transracial or transnational adoptions. Focusing on interviews of a focus group 
of 22 White adoptive mothers, she interrogates their different adoptive pro- 
cesses based on the race of their adoptive child: White, Asian, Black, and 
Biracial. The text, divided in five chapters, aims to gives readers a look into the 
multifaceted process of the adoptive experience and brings the narratives of 
White adoptive mothers into the public sphere. 
In the first two chapters, Moosnick gives a brief overview of the historical 
perception of transracial and transnational adoption. She calls attention to the 
protest of the National Association of Black Social Workers during the 1970s 
when they challenged Black adoptions as "cultural genocide" (2) and how social 
workers "redefined" the ethnicity of Black and Biracial to make them more 
appealing to White adoptive families (3). According to Moosnick, racial 
attitudes have since changed; yet, there is still a greater preference among 
White adoptive mothers for "lighter skinned children (13). 
Moosnick also sets the stage for raising the critical issue ofwhether White 
adoptive mothers who participate in transracial or transnational adoptions are 
victims andlor victimizers. She finds that these mothers are socially perceived 
as saving the adoptive "child from the biological mother who is understood to 
be neither morally nor financially capable" (13). However, she also becomes a 
part of the power hierarchy, which gives greater privilege to White adoptive 
families because they are socially perceived as more fit and "legitimate" (24). 
The third and fourth chapters explicate the role race plays in adoption. In 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 377 


Fear of Food: A Diary of Mothering

Editorial Masthead

Fisher-Wirth, Ann

Of Silence and Idolatry 
I run my hands over the perfect, smooth slipping body of my child. I hover over 
the toilet when she is sick, and full of pity for the small bowed back, I watch the 
shit come out of my sick child's bent and laboring body. Then I know the depth 
of my idolatry. 
This is a memory I have of my daughter when she was two in the upstairs 
bathroom on 9th Street, the bathroom where the toiletwas raised above the floor 
to retrofit the plumbing. The next-to-last house I lived in with John, when our 
three children were tiny. The house in California with apricots, plums, 
blackberries, strawberries, figs, lemons-with impatiens, begonias, calendulas, 
ranunculus-and the tree I thought of as paradise, a huge grapefruit tree by the 
street on which buds, white flowers, green and golden fruit all coexisted, in a 
simultaneous birthing and fruiting and blossoming. The house we brought our 
son to as a newborn, where the girls sat on the front curb with grandma and 
grandpa, holding their new stuffedlambs, waiting for the car to pullup and their 
brother so beautifully tanned with jaundice to be handed gingerly to them. A 
few days later, on a bright June morning, I laid Lucas on the bureau by the 
window, naked, soaking up sun for his jaundice, and Jessica on the bed bumped 
her hand and started to cry, and Pascale on the stairs bumped her foot and 
started to cry, then Lucas started to cry, and there theywere, scattered, bawling, 
and there I was, outnumbered. 
Loving them so, I've never written much about them, my three children with 
John, nor written much about him. And that is the door that remains to be 
opened. Why? Why go there? Why, when there is so muchpain, andso many things 
you stillcan'ttalk about?-To make my children part of my book. Children love 
to hear their mother praise them, and so here I will conjure them over and over, 
my 
daughter daughter son 
whose lives are the music in my blood. Whose lives my leaving broke in two, 
though when I left I didn't mean to leave them. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 351 
Ann Fisher- Wirth 
So when youfelI in love that spring with Peter, suddenly andforever, you thought 
firginia would be the same as California, where no one got blamed, everyone 
divorced, and everyone shared custody. Well. Remember the day the lawyer said, 
"Once a woman falls offthepedestal in Virginia, she's in the mud"? Remember how 
happy she sounded, even though you'd heard she was afeminist and were planning 
to hire her? Watching her smirk, you drove the sharp endof apaperclip into the palm 
ofyour hand, over and over and over. That's when you knew you would notfight, 
would not start taking the children t o  church in dresses andlittle suits, sitting upfiont 
like that lawyer saidyou'd have to. Not try to makeJohn look bad, not drag the 
children to court andmake them choose between you. -A voice comes in me: Bitch, 
remember the 4p.m. you signed the separation agreement, your hand lowered to  the 
heavy legalpaper, and though you sworeyou woulddie insteadyou agreed not t o  see 
themfiom summer to  Hallowe'en, from Hallowe'en to Christmas,fiom Christmas to  
Easter,ji-om Easter to summer? Remember the moment he drove them out ofsight 
and they knelt on the back seat looking out the window, andyou stood on the porch 
next t o  the apricot tree and did not even die, and turned and went inside, and they 
were moving back t o  Calfornia? 
I don't understand happiness or how you ever know. Our marriage was probably 
ending for more than a decade. But most ofthe time we got alongjust fine. Most 
of the time we lived the way you do, moment to moment, day to day- 
I take hamburger from the freezer, tonight I'm going to make spaghetti sauce. 
I've waited too late, again; why can't I ever take it out in time for it to thaw? But 
I'm clever with the spatula, cooking it over low heat, scraping it off as it warms 
and softens. The children have their deep bottom drawer-an idea I got from 
Ellen. They can keep their toys and junk right here beside me in the kitchen, 
and play around my feet, which sometimes they do peacefully. Or let's say I'm 
constantly interrupted, Pascale and Jessica both want the Holly Hobby coloring 
book, Lucas's shirt is wet with juice, someone has skinned a knee, someone 
needs a nap, surely needs a diaper change-and the kittens are mewing to come 
inside, the mother cat needs food, Pascale wants to tell me in endless detail the 
plot of "The Aristocats," her favorite movie. That's the late afternoon. And the 
refrigerator is on the back porch, so cooking means walking back and forth, get 
the meat, the onions, the tomatoes, the bread and butter and jam for a pre- 
dinner snack for Jessica, who's starving. Or  cheerios for Lucas, in his high chair. 
Then everyone needs milk, in a Tommy Tippee cup or bottle. 
Day by day, those years, I thought I could live with John forever. Jackie said, 
"Do you know how lucky you are, to have such a great family guy?" So I don't 
want to tell you, don't want you to know, how I failed him in my thoughts, how 
I failed him in my deeds, lay beside him night after night in my old lady 
352 ( Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 
Of Silence and Idolatry 
underpants and cotton flowered granny gown dreading the day the children 
would grow and we'd have nothing to talk about. Once I told him, "This is 
practice for when I'm dead," and for some reason I thought of it as a friendly 
thing to say, an acknowledgment: "I'm not here, really, you move across the 
ghost of me." 
But there is happiness in the daily roundpom sink to stove to table, f70m bath to 
garden to kindergarten, the long delirium of immersion, in service to their sweet 
bodies. Picking up and doing laundy, home haircuts, we are so poor we barter what 
we can, do yard work for rent, rejoice at the relatives' cast-offclothes andfurniture. 
John scrounges the trash, that's how we get our ironing board, a bronzeyoor lamp, 
a Craftsman chair. In thegarage wejnd-andkeep-aprevious tenant's enormous 
walnutpictureame, and I buy a cheap print ofa Right Whale that reminds me of 
Moby-Dick. -What do the children wear? Pascale likes pants, she climbs trees, 
John takes her to see "The Wild Chil8andfor months she becomes /'enfant sauvage, 
scampers nakedin the macadamia nut treeandon the roofs of neighbors'houses. Jessica 
is theprairiegirl in little shawls and dresses, she wears hats andstrings beads on tiny 
wires, making bracelets, necklaces. Lucas stuffs his tummy into his patched green 
jeans, hisfeet into Zachary 's cowboy boots. John ties a bandanna aroundLucas's neck 
andsits him on the motorcycle he boughtfor $5, that runs only once, andgoes "vroom 
vroom"andmakes Lucas laugh. OneyearIam on a seamstressjagandImake thegirls 
nightgowns, sweaters; the nightgowns are stzfandsoon too small, andthe sweaters 
get bigger every time Iwash them. -What do the children do? Well, for one thing, 
wegarden. We walk up to theplant store, and that in itselftakes forever, mepushing 
the buggy with someone skipping alongside and someone riding behind. We walk 
around the aisles ofplants looking at theyowers and reading offnames on the little 
six-packs. Zinnias, cosmos, calendulas, Johnny jump-ups, nasturtiums. Snapdrag- 
ons that open wide when you squeeze their hinges and clamp their jaws on the 
children 'sjngers. Ranunculus bulbs, myfavorite, because I keep thinking this time 
they willyower abundantly, andsometimes they nearly do, but then because the soil 
wants to revert to desert no matterhow much Iwater, no matterhow much Iaddloam 
and compost, they growpeakedand wizened. Then we walk home andplant things. 
I can garden while they nap or they can he? me, looking for sowbugs and snails, 
picking strawberries when they're ripe, or blackberries when they poke through the 
neighbors'fence, that's fair, or apricots big as tennis balls. -What do the children 
eat? Pumpkin bread. Milk, though they hatepowderedmilk, which John makes them 
drink because it is cheaper. Apple juice, applesauce, applepie. Hamburgers, meatloaJ; 
all the usualthings. Bananas, avocados. Big Macs for Pascale, raspberries forJessica, 
andfor Lucas, his own invention, triple-buttersandwiches. Only a few things they 
all agree on: lasagna, spaghetti, homemade doughnuts, fudge ripple ice cream. 
This is my idolatry. I know every inch of their bodies. Which ones vomit easily, 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 353 
Ann Fisher- Wirtb 
which one fights it. Whose diaper rash responds to Desenex, whose to 
Caldesene powder, whose to aloe vera. Who nearly drowns, who gets croup, 
who gets scarlet fever. Who has ticks one day on the genitals and deep in the 
folds of the ear. Who has ringworm, constipation, nightmares of wolves and 
schoolrooms, a herniated navel.. . I know their feet pushing off against my belt, 
their gums then teeth at my nipples, the swivel oftheir downy sticky heads, their 
pee on my jeans and slobber down my shirt, how they pack dirt and baby food 
in the fat folds of their chins. I know their sweet heft: so many years carrying 
babies, always on the right hip, that my ribcage finally pivots, the bones poke 
out, and I am sure I am dying of cancer. I know them with my prayers and all 
ten fingers. God, I know my children the way you know your breath, your voice, 
the water in your eyes. 
Nearly twenty years ago, when I was visiting them in California, the kids and 
I stood talking to their neighbour, who said, "Ah yes, I remember you now. You 
are the woman who never stopped touching her children." 
Now they're grown, they are strong and beautiful.AndJohn2-I used to dream 
sometimes that I was still married to him but had been having an affair with 
Peter for years, and in my dream I would think, This is wrong, Peter is the one 
I should be married to, I have to leave John. Last night I dreamedwe made love, 
John and I, though in my dream I didn'twant to dream it, I wantedit to be Peter, 
but John kept saying, No, me. So we did. And now I understand it. When you 
draw a circle of love you can't just forever leave somebody outside. 
Today the rain has stopped. A cloudy sun comes out behind the trees, here 
where I sit, once again in California. Thirty-four years ago we honeymooned, 
John and I, in Inverness, just across Tomales Bay from where I spend these days 
at Point Reyes Station. The people at the hotel loaned us their little sailboat, 
we assured them we could sail-and we could, sort of. When we ran aground 
we were so full of guilt, afraid we'd hurt the boat, we gingerly lifted it off the 
rocks to check the paint for scratches, but we hadn't done a bit of damage, and 
soon, in the sun with a breeze behind us, we were asail again. 
Such anguish, the seven years I did not live with my children. Those comings 
and goings, letters and cards and sticker books and stickers, the stories read over 
the telephone. The angry hugs that hurt. Nights of sobbing, rigid, before 
parting. Then songs all the way to the airport, "Early Morning Rain," "The 
Water Is Wide," "Sleep, Baby, Sleep," "Hush, My Honey," "The Street Where 
You Live," and all the rest, as if to fill them for my absence. My sweet children, 
till you lived with me again, those were our history. 
354 ( Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 
Of Silence and Idolahy 
AndIsat in my o f i  that Monday in Virginia, my suitcase hidden behind the door. 
I had cooked eggs and toasted bread, kissed the children, John had driven me to the 
o f le  as he did every morning. A few months later Karen brought me an article, 
meaning t o  be kind, about mothers who have divorced and lost their children. - 
Why? Why did you do it? Why did one foot follow another and your body 
consent not to be home when they came home, not to be there with your arms, 
why did you leave them that first night, bitch, bitch, why did you let them rock 
and cry and how do you think they could sleep and wake without you? Because 
Icould not sleep or eat, havingfound Peter, the one love strong as birth? Because John 
rtfiused to  leave and he was bigger, he couldpick me up andput me outside, he could 
lock the door, I couldn't win? Because I had Peter and John had nobody? Truth is, 
becuuseIdidnJt thinkrdlosethem, Ithought we'dlive close by andsee each other daily, 
they'd be mine because I was their mother, John would agree t o  that, and the kids 
would sleep three nights with me, three nights with him, we'd be one o f  those loose 
Calfornia families. John? Who was John?Not my enemy. 
"All we can be sure of is that at our most subjective we are universal; all we can 
be sure of is the profound flow of our living tides of meaning," Muriel Rukeyser 
writes in The Lzfe ofPoety. But a motherwho loses her children-a mother who 
loses her children-who bears them and loves them and cares for them and then 
lets the maw of the world yawn wide so that when they look they cannot find 
her-I'm not sure such awoman's subjectivity can be universal. For many years, 
I felt: If the world would stone such a creature, would leave her to die by the 
road, I would not blame it. 
How you want them sleeping that small, gummed sleep, working their mouths 
alittle, making those tiny smacking sounds like they did at the nipple when they 
were babies. Then waking up happy or grouchy or any old way, rubbing the 
sleep from the corners of their eyes. You want them in footed pajamas, in down 
jackets, Nikes, boxer shorts, ripped jeans, body piercings, you name it, their 
lanky or curving flesh crossing your doorsill, flopped at your table. Even their 
music, turned up loud. Their broken-down jeeps in your driveway, their Great 
Dane puppies yapping in the mudbath devastation of your yard. 
Those first weeks after birth, I'd hold my babies in the bath. Their head would 
rest on my breast, and their feet would reach to my pubic bone. My heart would 
beat into every bit of their bodies. I'd lay my hands upon them, gently, lightly, 
cradling the tiny butts and legs, and spread a wrung washcloth over them to 
keep their little backs warm. 
Journal $the Associationfor Research on Mothering ( 355 
Ann Fisher- Wirth 
Note to "Blesser" and "Of Trinket, of Mary": 
These poems are part of a sequence called "The Trinket Poems," which I wrote 
after acting the part ofTrinket Dugan in "The Mutilated," a little-known one- 
act play by Tennessee Williams which is part of a double bill called The Slapstick 
Tragedy. The paragraph below is from the preface to "The Trinket Poems," 
written by the play's director, Michele Cuomo. 
In April 2002 I directed a production of The Slapstick Tragedy at the University 
of Mississippi, featuring Ann Fisher-Wirth as Trinket Dugan in "The Muti- 
lated." Trinket's left breast has been removed. Her mutilation leaves her heart 
close to the surface. Celeste, her shoplifting prostitute companion, "exposes" 
Trinket's mutilation, not only by scratching it on the bathroom wall, but also 
by slowly opening her heart. Trinket at first seeks to salve her wound with "the 
Christmas gift of alover." In our production, Trinket adorns herselfwith Mardi 
Gras beads and stretches them out to her drunken sailor, offering herself as a 
sacrifice in a Dionysian ritual; she returns to the spirit of the original Mardi 
Gras carnival, avalediction to carne, offering herself to indulge the sailor's desire 
to rend her further. This ritual, however, is a failure, as the sailor and Trinket 
tear awayfrom each otherwhen Celeste's screams interrupt them, and the sailor 
falls asleep. Trinket is then stirred by maternal longings, and mourns her 
missing breast for its ability to nourish. She transfers her desire back to the 
maternal, and feeds and comforts the starving, childlike Celeste. She passes 
wine and wafer to Celeste, and in that ritual ofthe mass, her room at the Silver 
Dollar Hotel becomes a sacred space where Trinket and Celeste can commune 
with the divine. 
Acknowledgements: 
In Crescent" first appeared in Irir:A JoumalAbout Women and is published in 
Five Terraces (Wind Publications, 2005). 
"Moth" is published in Five Terraces. 
"Devotions" first appeared in Wind and is published in Five Terraces. 
"Kisses" first appeared in F(yway and is published in Five Terraces. 
"Daughters" was published in Blue Window (Archer Books, 2003). 
"Raccoons, A History" was published in Blue Window and in ElementalSouth: 
A n  Anthology of Southern Nature Writing, ed. Dorina G.  Dallmeyer (University 
of Georgia Press, 2004). 
"At McClure's Beach" first appeared in Poetry Internationaland is published in 
Five Terraces. 
"Blesser" and "Of Trinket, of Ma ry" were first published in The Trinket Poems 
(Wind, 2003) and are republished in Five Terraces. 
356 ( Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 


Of Silence and Idolatry

Podnieks, Elizabeth

"The One True Thing in My Life": Mother-Son Relations in the Art and Life of Emily Coleman

Ottewell, Teresa

Book Reviews 
because we, as a culture, dictate that only the biological mother is capable of 
mlling them" (11). Empowered mothering, in contrast, "recognizes that 
both mothers and children benefit when the mother lives her life and prac- 
tices mothering from a position of agency, authority, authenticity, and au- 
tonomy" (12). In  each of the five sections, the essays explore topics related to 
alternative mothering styles. They show how women of all races, classes, and 
sexual orientations are exposed to, accept, resist, or negotiate the dominant 
discourse of "sacrificial motherhood." 
I was especially interested in the essays on African-American mothering 
which construct a mothering style that differs completely from the white 
middle-class ideal of intensive biological mothering. The essays show how 
traditional African-American women-centered mothering, community, and 
other-mothering benefit women, children, and communities alike. 
Another essay that stands out is Paula Caplan's "Don't Blame Mother - 
Then and Now." Caplan discusses the mother blame inherent in the dominant 
psychological discourse and how it characterizes anything related to mothers as 
pathological and devoid of value. She uncovers the scapegoat hnction that 
mothers in North American society, assigning them the blame for such 
social problems as crime. Her harsh criticism of psychoanalysis, and the ways 
in which psychiatrists decide who is "normal," is refreshing for every mother 
torn between her interest in education or paid work and her alleged duty to live 
only for her children. 
This first Canadian volume of scholarly work on empowered mothering is 
- 
a must for anyone interested in the contradictions that underlie the experience 
of mothering and the institution of motherhood. 
The Grand Permission 
New Writings on the Poetics of Motherhood 
Patricia Dienstfrey and Brenda Hillman, eds. 
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003 
Reviewed by Teresa Ottewell 
Patricia Dienstfrey and Brenda Hillman's anthology, The Grand Permission: 
New Writings on Poetics andMotherhood, is a compelling collection ofwomen's 
writing that belongs on the bookshelf of every mother who yearns to find ways 
to "get through the day with an intact sense of self." The Grand Permission 
speaks succinctly to the experiences of women attempting to maintain a 
creative, soul-affirming existence amidst the conflicting time and emotional 
358 1 Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 
Book Reviews 
demands inherent in the role of mother. 
The editors asked 32 contributors to describe the dynamic connections 
between motherhood and creativity. Through the insightful and intimate 
exploration of self and (m)other, the authors' perspectives on the challenges of 
early parenting, on managing shifting priorities, on the loss of personal space, 
time, and freedom, and on the profound personal growth and development that 
motherhood offers, will resonate with any mother involved in creative pursuits. 
Maxine Kumin opens the anthology by recalling her struggle to be 
regarded as a legitimate artist in 1950s middle-class America, when most 
female poets were childless (she had three children) and where the domestic 
form (which Kumin and fellow poet Anne Sexton used when writing about 
children, mothering, and emotion) was considered inferior. Toi Derricotte's 
stunningly frank account of being eighteen, middle-class, pregnant, and black 
in the 1960s strikes a strong chord about the perceived shame of a young mother 
in the pre-feminist era. Derricotte could not write of her experience until her 
son was sixteen. 
Writers also consider the difficulty of being bound to structure and form, 
poetic or (m)otherwise, during motherhood. Mary Margaret Sloanwrites that 
all boundaries were clear before she had a child; as a writer she "could withdraw 
into my solitary fastness of silence, to observe, think, read, and dream from my 
own point of view." Once her child was born, however, she felt "the rupture of 
my personal boundaries, the conquering of my keep of quietude, the assault on 
the solitary, inner directed self1 hadn't even realized I possessed. . . . how could 
I even know who I was, or what I was thinking, or what I wanted to do if I 
weren't able to occupy my single point alone, if I had to share it with another 
person?" For Kimiko Hahn, being a mother-poet allowed her to be more 
fragmented, which brought her to writing Japanese zuihitsu poetry, a form that 
literally means to follow the impulses ofthe brush. Hahn states "fragmentation 
suits me because I love long pieces into which I can come and go as I please. 
Compartmentalized not unlike my own life of mother, wife, teacher. . .writer." 
Alicia Ostriker writes that we learn to speak through our mothers, for 
"language is female. Silence is masculine. Masculinity is silence." Lullabies, 
baby talk, storytelling, rhyming games, and staccato toddler conversations 
become the poetics of motherhood in Frances N. Phillips's essay "Allowance." 
In our daily caregiving roles, these authors assert, we are all creative, even if that 
means being creative with our time and energy management. Dale Going 
writes that she "never figured out, as mothers who write must, how to act and 
reflect in the same time/space. How to livelhow to write, without the slash." 
Going's observations capture the experience of creative mothers everywhere 
who cannot find the "uninterrupted time inwhich to be receptive to revelation." 
In The GrandPermission, the rich inner and outer experiences ofthe writer/ 
mother are wondermy articulated. Beautiful and eloquent, the anthology is 
a delight to read. 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 359 


The Grand Permission: New Writings on the Poetics of Motherhood

Green, Fiona Joy

Book Reviews 
significant public consequences. Parents who opt to either stay out of the paid 
workforce or work part-time lose social security and other benefits. Employers 
also lose, particularly when trained employees feel they must leave their jobs 
because they are not given the options ofreduced or flexible work hours. Parents 
(most often mothers) struggle to "do it all": to have a career and raise children, 
to have enough money to support the family and enough time to devote to it. 
Mothering in America is not an isolated task, Peskowitz writes-it is deeply - 
engrained into social, cultural, economic, and political issues. Yet these issues 
are not fully discussed publicly. For the most part, mothering is featured in the 
media as yet another style issue. 
Peskowitz makes a concerted effort to include the concerns of mothers 
from diverse backgrounds (with the exception of lesbian mothers). She exarn- 
ines the early feminist movement and the split between the concerns of 
working-class and middle-class mothers. She also attempts to reframe the 
problem ofwork-life balance as a parenting problem, rather than a mothering 
problem, although she acknowledges that the majority of parenting is done 
presently by mothers. 
Consciousness-raising is a ~owerful tool for changing systems of oppres- 
sion. Peskowitz challenges us to move beyond the Mommy Wars to make social 
structural changes that will benefit all parents. She envisions a "playground 
revolution": "Motherhood can feel so private, so isolating. How then do we 
connect it with building new playgrounds and political activism and changing 
public policy? This is our challenge, the next feminist challenge, the work left 
to do." 
Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 
1890-1970 
The Maternal Dilemma 
Ann Taylor Allen 
Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 
Reviewed by Fiona Joy Green 
In Feminirm and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890-1970, history professor 
Ann Taylor M e n  explores the "maternal dilemma" facing women living in 
western Europe during the twentieth century, namely their ability to be 
mothers and autonomous individuals. Drawing on her extensive knowledge of 
women's history and feminist movements-mainly in Britain, France, Ger- 
many, and the Netherlands-Men pens an enlightening, if non-academic, 
examination of how motherhood came to be perceived as freely chosen. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 363 
Book Reviews 
The first section ofAllen's book considers the pre-First World War ears, 
1890 to 1914. Chapter one provides an excellent overview of the maternal role 
as read by feminist scholars who challenged the notion of universal subordina- - 
tion ofwomen and mothers in prehistoric times with a maternalist understand- 
ing of motherhood as the highest form of human achievement, thereby 
confirming women's powerful positions in the private and public realms. 
Chapters two and three trace efforts made by feminists to increase the legal 
status of mothers (married or unmarried), and their demands for economic 
independence for wives and mothers whose subordination was understood to 
be rooted in their economic dependence on men. Chapter four considers how 
the view of mothering as public duty contributed to a new definition of 
motherhood that inclujed personal choice, the reproductive rights ofwomen, 
and the role of the state in these matters. Chapter five considers the effects of 
the First World War on feminist approaches to motherhood and reproduction 
that safeguarded the lives of mothers and children, as well as the independent 
employment of mothers in traditionally male-dominated jobs. 
The interwar years 1918 to 1939 are the focus of the next three chapters, 
which begin with feminists challenging the social ideal of the full-time mother 
in a compassionate marriage and acknowledging the triple burden of marriage, 
motherhood, and employment. They offer a view of motherhood that com- 
bines a caring commitment to children and a career, particularly in the dirty 
thirties when attacks on working mothers increased due to the high rate of male 
unemployment. Chapter seven addresses birth control movements and their 
creation ofthe new ideal ofheterosexual marital bliss and parent-child intimacy 
that undermined the maternalist view of motherhood as a public service. 
Chapter eight explores feminist responses to the contradictory understanding 
of motherhood by the emerging field of psychiatry: that motherhood is a 
normal, biological imperative, but mothers need the advice of experts if they 
want to avoid harming their children. 
The final section addresses three major developments of the period 1945 
to 1970: (i) new laws affecting mothers, children, and female reproduction; (ii) 
the presence of mothers in the labour force; and (iii) the feminist rebellion 
against maternity. Allen argues that parental rights of mothers, state benefits 
to families, the legalization of birth control, and psychological theories that 
redefined motherhood as a finite job rather than a lifetime identity supported 
a new emphasis on women's personal liberty and self-realization. M e n  
concludes that the difficulty of reconciling maternal and familial responsibili- 
ties with individual aspirations continues today. 
For readers interested in social history, policy, law, and feminist move- 
ments, this book provides insight into the work of feminists on issues of 
motherhood, as well as the history of feminism over an era of great social and 
economic change. It  also offers a macro view of the social, political, and 
economic contexts that shaped the work of feminists. 
364 1 Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 


Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890-1970: The Maternal Dilemma

Ann Fisher-Wirth 
In Crescent 
The bloodwall thickens 
and everyone I have loved 
begins to ripen within my body. 
A quiet time: the house 
curls in upon itself, enfolds 
the sleeping children; the daisy 
shuts its petals, and their lashes are wet 
with the mercy of sleep. 
Summer's grasses 
are long, so long 
that we seem to move through water. 
Children again, we clamor, Mother 
may I, mother may I? And she 
by the elm in shadow, whose belly 
catches moonlight: Come 
as you will, I will hold you, 
I am warm, all steps 
lead where I am hidden. 
And so inch forward toward that 
teeming bed 
where we all lie down together. 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering / 335 
Detailfrom "The Endless Bench," by Lea Vivot, 1984. 
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. Photo: Joe Paczuski 
336 1 Volume 8, Numbers 1.2 


In Crescent

Schultermandl, Silvia

Motherhood and Mothering as Sites of Difference in Barbara Kingsolver's "Pigs in Heaven"

Thomas, Jan E.

Book Reviews 
autobiography and theory, is most welcome and, because it raises questions for 
further consideration, such as feminism's own essentidzing tendencies, 
Keniston's essay is a suitable finale to a comprehensive volume. 
The New Midwifery 
Reflections on Renaissance and Regulation 
Farah M. Shroff, ed. 
Toronto: Women's Press, 1997 
Reviewed by Jan E. Thomas 
For generations, Canadian midwives have assisted women during pregnancy 
and birth; only recently, however, have they done so with state recognition. The 
essays included in The New Midw* y: ReJIections on Renaissance andReguZation 
discuss the process of legislating midwives in Canada and the implications of 
state regulation for midwives and mothers. 
The first section of the bookintroduces issues of diversity and debate. One 
key concern is the newly created divisions between midwives. Cecilia Benoit's 
essay on professionalizing midwifery suggests that legislation has created three 
key points of contention within the midwifery community: midwifery training, 
regulation ofpractice, and organization ofwork. While midwives gained much 
by becoming autonomous professionals, they have also had to compromise 
some ofthe freedoms that went alongwith being independent ofthe health care 
system. Several essays draw attention to these issues and concerns. 
The essays in the first section demonstrate how regulations do not affect 
all groups equally. Pat Israel's essay on mothers with disabilities provides a 
succinct and practical summary of specific issues that affect this group of 
women. An essay by an Aboriginal midwife illustrates the unique blending of 
mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of birth and healing that is 
part of her culture. Other essays explore how legislation might impact immi- 
grant women and midwives from the global South countries who live with the 
legacy of colonization, racism, and oppression. 
The second section focuses on state regulation in six provinces with 
legislation in place by 1997. While essays concentrate on specific provinces, 
many common themes emerge. First, the importance of state support for 
midwifery (including funding) is made very clear. State support confers 
legitimacy on the profession and provides midwives with a place in the 
mainstream medical system. The celebration of state recognition, however, is 
tempered with concerns about the limitations of regulations. Many of these 
issues are raised in the first section and further illuminated by the case studies 
in the second section. 
368 1 Volume 8, Numbers 1,2 
Book Reviews 
The issues of race, class, and gender are also woven throughout the 
book. At the time of legislation most midwives who were authorized to practice 
were white and middle class (like those most involved in crafting the legisla- 
tion). Several essays discuss the need to incorporate more women of colour, 
Aboriginal women, and culturally relevant care to make midwifery services 
truly accessible to all. 
Finally, the importance of women's voices is interlaced throughout the 
essays. In some cases, they are the voices of midwives who share the unique 
needs of women in their communities. More subtly, the collective voices of 
Canadian women who want their birth choices to be respected are heard, 
including the voices ofwomen politicians, social scientists, and health workers 
who help contribute to this story of creating a model of midwifery care in 
Canada. 
The strengths of this book are its inclusion of these diverse voices and its 
mix of practical, theoretical, and academic essays. The New Midwifwy is 
appropriate for birth activists, midwives, and those interested in the broader 
context of midwifery care. It will be particularly useful for those grappling with 
the legalization of midwives in their own communities. The book provides 
important insights, lessons, and potential models. Regrettably, it was written 
soon after regulation went into effect and the long-term successes and failures 
of legislation are still unknown. Those stories remain for others to tell. 
How to Avoid the Mommy Trap 
A Roadmap for Sharing Parenting and Making 
It Work 
Julie Shields 
Sterling, VA: Capital Books, 2003 
Reviewed by Diana L. Gustafson 
How toAvoid the Mommy T r a p  is hailed as "the essential guide for women who 
want to balance motherhood and life." Clearly written, cleverly packaged, and 
humorous at times, lawyer and mother Julie Shields offers a roadmap to shared 
parenting that includes practical strategies for recognizing and avoiding the 
mommy trap. According to Shields, a woman is stuck in the "mommy trap" 
when she takes on a disproportionately greater share of parenting and house- 
hold responsibilities with a disproportionately lesser share of leisure and 
personal time than her husband, and when she objects to this situation, believes 
it is unchangeable, and makes no plan for "getting unstuck" (14). 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 369 
