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

Thomas, Trudelle

English

Planting Seeds of Peace: Fresh Images of God

Musial, Jennifer

Book Reviews 
Making Women Pay: 
The Hidden Cost of Fetal Rights 
Rachel Roth 
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Jennifer Musial 
Making Women Pay: The Hidden Cost @Fetal Rights is a thoroughly docu- 
mented book that illustrates how women disproportionately pay the price of 
reproduction. Roth uses a critical legal studies approach to examine the law, 
government, and public policy between 1973 and 1992 in post-Roe v. Wade 
United States. Roth looks specifically at three aspects associated with fetal 
rights: "work, medical care settings," and "government regulation of women's 
consumption of drugs and alcohol" (2). Roth's goal in Making Women Pay is to 
"analyze fetal rights policies and practices on their own terms and to analyze 
their impact on women, the fetuses they may bear, and prospects for gender 
equality in the United States" (13). Throughout her text, she asserts that work 
on reproductive rights tends to ignore the gender discrimination and sexism 
that lie at the heart of reproductive issues. 
Making Women Pay is comprehensive and thoughtfully organized. Follow- 
ing a literature review in chapter two, Roth examines how workplaces and 
courts use the discourse of fetal rights to discriminate against women. Whether 
they are pregnant or not, women are arbitrarily barred from certain types of 
employment deemed harmful. When women cannot be prohibited from 
working, they are subject to guilt and blame for not sufficiently protecting their 
fetuses. Ultimately, courts and companies would rather condemn women than 
put forth efforts to make workplaces safe. Roth then looks at medical interven- 
tions into pregnancy: forced caesarians, blood transfusions, and detainment, for 
example. She explains that actual contestation is not a maternal-fetal conflict 
but a conflict between women and the medical establishment andor the state. 
Next, Roth explores how the law has penalized women when they consume 
drugs andor alcohol during pregnancy. In each chapter, Roth points out the 
inconsistency in maternal-fetal health rhetoric. 
In advocating equality, Making Women Pay presents a largely liberal 
feminist argument. While Roth includes analysis of race and class, these are 
largely underdeveloped issues in her text. Also missing from Roth's study is a 
discussion ofwomen's agency. Only in her conclusion does she comment that 
some women have used fetal rights legislation to their advantage, as in cases 
involving domestic violence. In other books this emphasis might locate women 
as victims, but Roth's focus on the structural constraints imposed on women's 
reproductive freedom avoids this pitfall. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering ( 189 
Book Reviews 
As Roth points out, the reproductive costs, both physical and emotional, 
that women pay are enormous. Moreover, women are led to mistrust the 
medical and legal establishments. In fact, there is no direct cost-benefit 
relationship in terms of the cost to a woman and the benefit to her fetus. Roth 
returns to the idea that what women lose in the reproductive equation is gained 
by (male) doctors and lawmakers rather than fetuses. 
Perhaps most intriguing in Making Women Pay is the concept ofwoman's 
citizenship that, Roth argues, is constrained by fetal rights. According to Roth, 
a woman's rights to bodily integrity, employment, due process, and religious 
practice are fundamental issues of citizenship. This book would work well in 
political science and law courses, as well as women's studies courses. 
Crooked Smile: 
One Family's Journey To ward Healing 
Lainie Cohen 
Toronto: ECW Press, 2003 
Reviewed by Christine Peets 
Daniel Cohen was seventeen in August 1993 when he was involved in a car 
accident that left him with a brain injury. This book chronicles the struggle of 
Daniel and his family to deal with his trauma. Daniel's mother, Lainie Cohen, 
startedwriting Crooked Smile five years after her son's accident. It took another 
five years to complete and publish her work. 
Following his accident, Daniel was comatose for weeks and faced seem- 
ingly insurmountable odds. His injury affected his ability to talk, read, and 
move; his basic self-care functions had to be relearned. Health, educational, and 
social work professionals did not give the family much hope. The Cohens were 
told that their son would have to be institutionalized, but they refused to believe 
that Daniel would not improve. They never gave up and were willing to do, as 
Cohen writes, "whatever it takes to help our son." They carried out or 
supervised every aspect of Daniel's physical and mental care, well supported by 
family, friends, and health-care professionals. 
This exhaustive care took its toll on the family, however. The Cohens' 
younger son, Jonathan, started using marijuana. Their daughter, Alyssa, 
suffered joint pain that lefi her in a wheelchair for a time. Whiie the point is 
made that Daniel's trauma involved the whole family, Cohen does not make the 
connection strongly enough between what was going on with Daniel and how 
190 1 Volume 7, Number 2 


Making Women Pay: The Hidden Costs of Fetal Rights

Vertreace-Doody, Martha Modena

In this Glad Hour

Williams, Dawn L. Wright

Dawn L. Wright Williams 
Grandma's Hands 
An Open Letter to 
M y  Grandmother "Mother" 
It is estimatedthat52percent ofAfiican Americangrandmothers in the United States 
who live with theirgrandchildren are theirgrandchildren ?prima y caregivers ("Did 
You Know?", 2004). Refecting upon her l@ as an African American girVwoman 
raised by agrandmother, the author addresses an open letter t o  her. The writerpays 
homage t o  her grandmother while recollecting a wealth of experiences and special 
memories of time spent with her grandmother "mother." 
Grandma's hands 
Clapped in church on Sunday morning 
Grandma's hands 
Played the tambourine so well 
Grandma's hands 
Used to issue out a warning 
She'd say "Gladys don't you run so fast," 
Might fall on a piece of glass, 
Might be snakes there in that grass, 
Grandma's hands.. . (Withers, 2001) 
The African American Grandmother has been variously described as 
the guardian of the generation: The preserver of extended families, the 
keeper and sharer of history, wisdom, and folk beliefs, the source and 
communicators of values and ideals and the protector of grandchil- 
dren. (Gibson, 2002: 36) 
Reflecting upon my life I have composed an open letter to my grandmother. 
It  recounts my experiences being raised as her child. While I maintained regular 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 7 
Dawn L. Wright Williams 
contact with my mother, my grandmother, affectionately referred to as MaMa 
(pronounced Mah Mah), was my primary caregiver or my grandmother 
"mother." This recollection also includes memories of my great-grandmother, 
MaMa's mother, ofwhom I am vividly reminded by the relationship MaMa 
now has with my own daughters. 
Dear MaMa, 
As I sit here trying to write of my experiences growing up with you I 
often find myself moved to tears. I have so many memories, so many feelings, 
so many fears. I'm not quite sure where to start. I guess I will just start at the 
beginning. 
When I think of my life with you I think of not only love but also triumph 
and security. Triumph because we both triumphed over many adversities 
together by holding on to one another. Security because, plain and simple, 
that's what you provided me. I often thought as a young child what would 
happen to me if something happened to you. Where would I go? Who would 
care for me? Who could ever love me as you do? I still find myself, afier 36 years 
of living, asking myself the same questions. 
We  have shared so much together. My memories are full of my life with 
you. As a young child I don't remember much but I created these memories 
from all the stories you shared with me (and everyone else) of my early years on 
this earth. I seem to find it difficult to separate my recollections from yours: 
talung my first steps in your home, walking around the corner and looking up 
to see your smile and open arms celebrating my accomplishment; my first time 
reading the word "exit" to you on one of our many shopping trips in Chicago. 
I do remember the many nights you bathed and carried me, giggling to your bed 
then preparing our night-time ritual of eating chopped fruit and watching 
Johnny Carson. I remember the patience you hadwith me when I reminded you 
to "S-t-o-p" while driving because I had just learned to read the word. I have to 
remind myself of the patience you had with me as my young daughters now do 
the very same thing. 
I saw you as perfect as I did your mother, my great grandma. My young 
eyes saw you as beautiful. I remember you getting ready for church and 
admiring your perfection: your hair, your nails, your clothes, you. Remember- 
ing your hands they were always soft, well manicured, carrying a cute pock- 
etbook and sometimes carrying me. Your hands hid all the hard work and 
hard times you had gone through and still were going through while raising 
me. My child's mind could not comprehend how difficult it was to raise a 
child a second time around, especially, while working full time and some- 
times, as well, part time jobs. You made it seem easy, normal. Perhaps that 
was because you felt it was something I did not need to be concerned with. 
You realized "It shouldn't be hard to be a child" and you made sure that it 
wasn't for me. (Kimbro, 2003: 95) 
8 1 Volume 7, Number 2 
Grandma's Hands 
Grandma's hands 
Used to ache sometimes and swell 
Grandma's hands . . . 
When I watch you with my girls, I'm reminded of the treasured relation- 
ship I had with Grandma, your mother and my great-grandmother. Grandma 
was my first connection to my history, my roots, and my existence as a person 
of African descent. My time spent with her was like a quiet history lesson (she 
was such a quiet natured woman-when she wanted to be). Some of my most 
treasured memories are the times I spentwith her cooking. Cooking, as in most 
African American families, was definitely a grandmother (in my case great 
grandmother)- granddaughter bonding ritual. I absolutely loved it! She taught 
me the recipes of her childhood and as a result exposed me to cultures and 
traditions that, until adulthood, I thought were uniquely hers. I thought praline 
or "py-rine" candy and "cha cha" (chow chow) relish were delectables that she 
alone created, until I met other African Americans who were familiar with 
these foods. 
I hold in my memory the instruction she gave me on quilting: how to make 
blocks and how to sew them together and how to tack. I still have my quilt that 
grandma made for my seventh birthday. I believe that was a part of her 
contribution to this world, her quilting. Her affliction with polio made working 
a traditional job physically impossible so she used what she knew to contribute 
what she could. Her quilts were not fancy in fact they were particularly 
functional. Just the same every one delighted when she presented them with a 
quilt for a birthday or the arrival of a new baby. And she was filled with joy and 
pride to create them and give them away. I am just as delighted when I hold 
mine now as I remember being at seven when I received it. Holding it brings 
me a sense of comfort and peace. I feel grandma is near me then. 
But you know MaMa, what I remember most about Grandma was her 
hands. I remember she used to always say to me "You're gonna miss these old 
hands one day." That always sent a little shudder through me. It  still does 
because her words are so true. I do miss her hands. Those hands that held me 
on her lap when I cried because I hurt. Those hands that gently plaited my hair 
and scratched my scalp (our therapeutic ritual that we shared since she allowed 
me to plait and scratch her scalp aiso. I suppose this was her way of teaching me 
to braid hair.) Those hands shelling peas quietly for hours on end on her front 
porch or the porch of her sisters in Mississippi. Those hands, tough from 
picking up hot cast iron skillets and gripping those old wooden crutches she 
relied on for all of her life. Those hands whose thumbs twiddled hours upon 
hours when she sat beside her front door window during the last years of her 
life. Those hands achy, swelling and sore as cancer spread through her body. 
Those hands tough as she was, yet, soft as she was. 
Her stories and experiences are still with me to this day. She is still with me 
to this day. I talk to her. She answers me. 
Journal oftbe Associationfor Research on Mothering / 9 
Dawn L. Wright Williams 
Grandma's hands 
Used to hand me a piece of candy 
Grandma's hands 
Picked me up each time I fell 
Grandma's hands.. . 
I know there were challenging times: a woman in midlife raising a girl 
trying to become a woman. My teenaged years were difficult for me so I know 
they were difficult for you. With age comes wisdom, and questions. Questions 
I was afraid to ask and questions I assume you were not able to answer. 
Questions like "Am I ever a burden to you?" 'What are your dreams?" "Did you 
have to sacrifice them for your children or me?" 
I know my typical teenaged behaviour was challenging for you to go 
through a second time with a granddaughter. Times had changed. You were in 
your mid 30s when your daughters were teenagers. You were at "mid life" and 
at an age when a woman expects to be through with such emotions and battles 
that usually accompany a teenager during your second round of parenting with 
me. I know it wasn't easy to hear me blasting my beloved Prince music 
repeatedly. I remember you almost yelling over the music to talk to me. I never 
realized how much discomfort this caused you after worlung all day. You shared 
with me recently that my music would really "get on [your] nerves" until one day 
a little voice inside you reminded you to "Let that girl enjoy her music. It makes 
her happy." After that you said you decided to spend time outside after work 
and give me space inside to listen to music. "AU of my frustrations went away 
after that," you said. 
During all of the milestones, the challenges, the accomplishments I have 
had, you have been therewith me. My graduation from elementary school, high 
school, undergraduate and thengraduate schools. My moving out my sophomore 
year of college and you not once letting on that this rite of passage was just as 
difficult for you as it was for me until after I was settled into my new 
environment (I suppose you did not want me to feel guilty for moving). 
Wherever I have gone in my life you have been there and where ever I go I know 
you will be there. When I called to tell you I was pregnant with my first child, 
you approached me and acknowledged me as a woman yet guided and directed 
me with the wisdom and tenderness an elder shows to the inexperienced. You 
told me that if I kept my baby you would help me every step of the way and you 
have. I would have been lost ifyou hadn't been there to show me how to bathe 
the baby, console her when she was crying, how to eat properly so I could 
continue to breastfeed and stay healthy, how to survive teething, ear infections, 
- 
fevers and my own case of new mother stress and jitters. And you did the same 
thing for me when I had my second daughter. 
Naturally, we have had our share of childrearing disagreements, where I 
needed to establish my authority and place as an adult rather than a child. As 
well I had to recognize your place as matriarch and the wisdom carrier and learn 
10 1 Volume 7, Number 2 
Grandma's Hands 
to step back, learn what I needed to know and adapt your lessons to fit my 
individual circumstances. 
Motherhood made me recognize that your role of protector did not end 
once I reached adulthood. In fact, I don't think it will ever end. I t  will most 
certainly change and hopefully I will be able to be your protector if or when 
necessary. But I know you will always be my source of security. In you I know, 
that I will always have someone who "has my back" and who will believe me if 
no one else will (I think ofhow you stand up for me now as I struggle with panic 
disorder and accompanying phobias. You may not fully understand what I am 
experiencing but you are supporting me without question). 
I imagine this time of life must be a bit frightening for you as it is for me. 
I t  is now time for me to be your protector, for us to watch over one another. 
I want you to know the same security that I have felt all my life. I want you 
to know you will not be alone as long as I am around which is the same thing 
you made sure I knew as a child. I want to be strong when you can't. You have 
been strong all your life, out of necessity I am sure. You were strong enough 
to leave school in the tenth grade to provide support for your mother and 
sisters. And, you were strong enough to rebuild your life and the lives of your 
daughters after leaving an abusive marriage. Strong enough to quietly assume 
the role of single grandmother "mother" to me after raising two daughters of 
your own. Strong enough to go every Saturday to your daughter's home to 
help her with her young children while still raising me. Strong enough to 
work everyday, pick me up from school, take me to music lessons and 
relentlessly care for your mother in the last years of her life. Strong enough 
to bear the death ofboth your sisters on the same day. Strong enough to board 
a Greyhound Bus and travel more than 700 miles to come and help me with 
my children at age 78. 
As I grow older I realize the struggles that aging produces within our 
society. I see how difficult it is to be taken seriously at times and to be given the 
respect that has most certainly been earned as a result of the trial and errors of 
living. I acknowledge the concern and, I imagine, fear ofpossible illness and the 
affordability ofhealth care. And I am outraged at how expensive it is to age, the 
expense usually falling on the one who is aging of course. I sometimes worry 
about whether I will be able to hold up my end of responsibility for our taking 
care of one another. You have done your job, now I want to make sure I 
adequately do mine. I question if I will ever be half the woman you have been 
and are now and I wonder how many trial and error life lessons will I have to 
experience to get to where you are now. 
But despite all my questioning and self-doubt, there is one thing I am 
certain. I am certain that you can rest and be assured that "Untilthe endoftime, 
I'llbe thereforyou" (Prince, 1987). We will triumph over any adversity together 
and through our strength we will make it by holding on to one another. Life is 
a circle with no beginning and no end, just a continuation of our love for one 
another. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering I I 1  
Dawn L. Wright Williams 
References 
"Did You Know?" 2004, March. Essence Magazine 34 (11): 30. 
Gibson, P. A. 2002. "African American Grandmothers as Caregivers: Answer- 
ing the Call to Help Their Grandchildren." Families in Society 83 (1): 35- 
44. 
Kimbro, D. 2003. What Keeps Me Standing: Lettersfiom Black Grandmothers on 
Peace, Hope and Inspiration. New York: Doubleday. 
Prince. 1987. "Adore." Sign 'O'the Times [CD]. Burbank, CA: Warner Brother 
Records. 
Withers, B. 1971. "Grandma's Hands." [Performed by Gladys Knight, 2001.1 
At Last [CD]. Los Angeles: MCA Records. 
12 1 Volume 7, Number2 


Grandma's Hands: An Open Letter to My Grandmother "Mother"

Roy, Carole

Pesky Raging Grannies: Speaking Truth to Power with Wisdom, Humour and Spunky Actions

Scott, Jill

On Spiritual Homesickness: Mothering Peace in H. D.’s The Gift

Kruk, Laurie

Laurie Kruk 
Time Coming 
For HeZen Kowalchuk (1 904-2004) 
U. S.S.R.-Canada 
I 
For thirty-five years, 
"Time coming," Baba used to mutter. Satisfaction in 
the argument-ending certainty 
of a clock hand's crawl, moving her out in the company 
of ancestors, saints and the pre-ordered funeral package, planting her beside 
husband #2, Emilyan, who fell from her pruning. Satisfaction in the way she 
wrung a dishcloth 
or stabbed at the potatoes. Comfort in the silence she couldgenerate, darkcloud 
spreading like squid's ink as we sat at her table, forking down 
mountains of cabbage, beef and rice 
pickled beets bleeding 
onto chipped Woolco saucers. "Not gonna live forever-" Though every year 
we denied it-grew up/older-and she disproved it. Seventy-five, eighty, 
ninety and beyond. T o  the Nursing Home, where they only spoke English, 
hired illegal immigrants 
to wash, dress and wheel our grandparents 
to the Visitor's Room. 
I1 
At 100, she descends to a wheelchair, without benefit of a MP's photo-opp. 
Celebrations turn to accusations of her seventy-eight-year old son, 
now known as her brother, and "stealing my new potatoes-thiefi" 
No longer Miss Clairol-orange, her feathers ofwhite fire wildly as she fixes me, 
178 1 Volume 7, Number 2 
the unexpected Wedding Guest, with an eye ever-bright for the world's worry. 
It's the boys, she tells us, ariver ofwords, some Russian, then English, they need 
shelter, and clothes. "Police, lost, lost. Poor Chupchik*." Who will help? Her 
flood won't be dammed by barriers erected feebly now, with comments on the 
weather, the gift of soap, the plastic tree. "Ah, the winters were terrible there", 
whether Kirkland Lake or her village in Belarus. 'Yes, Nicky, he was going to 
become a teacher, but he needed new shoes. And a pair of glasses-he broke 
the last ones, chased home from school by that bully, Anton." I sit up, Dad 
sighs. 'You know, I rang and rang, I was trying to phone the police, but that 
woman, she never came." A nurse passes, peers in and says isn't it nice that 
Grandma has visitors for Christmas. And that it's almost lunch time. Baba 
glares, "And the soup, I wanted to tell you, it had no flavour at all. A nothing 
SOUP." 
111 
Diapers called Depends are now changed by brisk brown women who know her 
as Elly, always talking about her washing or cooking. Cutting down her skirts 
and blouses for the lost boys, so that she sits in Walmart sacks, tattered and 
safety-pinned. Now in Russia, now in Kirkland where husband #l,  Mike, 
finally brought her and chupchik, Baba rides the halls of memory, startling the 
blank faces she meets. In a lost conversation with her "brother"who remembers 
her son's birth, at 21, in a shed beside the wheatfield she was scything. Two 
women watching. "I was so thin, so young. Had no milk. Had to give him to 
the woman beside me, her baby died. Anton." 
Stopping before the photos of her 100th birthday party, she jabs a finger and 
says "See, my mother-like monkey-she lived too long, too long-" 
IV 
As we listen, her second granddaughter, 39, waits in hospital for the pains, the 
driving division that will turn her world inside out, begun again. Her husband 
holding her hand, rubbing her back, drinking her fear but readywith the camera 
and the rose in plastic. The ghost that haunted her nine-month house of flesh 
will put his feet down, sensing earth, now hidden under the first snow. Claim 
flesh's dearindignities, and a name. The purple wail that ends with him crushed 
to her filling breast 
an echo 
of the hundred years of his great-grandmother's losing, gaining and worrying. 
The mother, the timekeeper. Like the puppy trick: 
a hot water bottle and clock, wrapped in flannel, 
tucked beside the whimpering whelp 
whose only comfort is breathing in the beats 
of mother time. 
* "chid" (Russian) 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering ( 179 


Time Coming

Jeremiah, Emily

Book Reviews 
its birth, and now feel like a proud father carrying it out to the world for all to 
see. 
Twice Alive celebrates the majesty of birth and the developing child. 
Chapter by chapter, it travels with the mother through each trimester of 
pregnancy, the sometimes-experienced overdue phase, birth, and the chiid's 
first year. Each chapter begins by describing the particular gifts and challenges 
of each stage, followed by journal entries from the time when Osnes was 
pregnant with her daughter, Melisande, and ends with a suggested "to do" list 
that is both inspirational and practical, and includes designing your own 
birthing celebration, organizing meals to be brought after the birth, and 
forming a mothers' group. This is less a "how to" book than a companion that 
shares with its readers the intimate experience of mothering that is seldom 
talked about but is deeply felt. Not limited to a particular faith, this book roots 
itself in the soul-harvest that is reaped through the process of becoming a 
mother. Discoveries abound ofthe mother-like qualities ofGod andvisa-versa. 
As any mother can testify, new motherhood is extraordinary and, if 
attended to with a listening spirit, can be a time ofgreat spiritual awakening for 
a woman. As Osnes says, a new mother "is in such close proximity to the 
ultimate creative spirit that she can feel its hot breath on the backofher neck." 
Osnes reminds us to prioritize the importance of early motherhood by pushing 
away the invasive business of the world, by lying on our backs in the grass with 
our babes on our chests, and by letting the warm blessings of the sun spill over 
us. I grew profoundly nostalgic whiie reading this book, particularly when I 
realized that the precious lessons and gifts of that insular time are no longer 
fresh in my memory. Osnes reminds me of how far I have traveled, what I have 
endured, and how much wiser I am now that I am a mother. As she explains: 
"Now you have twice a stake in the future. You have twice the reason to care 
about the legacy our generation is handing down to the next and twice the 
strength to make a difference. You have twice the accomplishments to cheer, 
twice-the obstacles to conquer, twice the shoes to tie, twice the laughter and 
tears. Ifyou feel twice as deeply and soar twice as high then, indeed, you must 
be twice alive." 
A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother 
Rachel Cusk 
London: Fourth Estate, 2001 
Reviewed by Emily Jeremiah 
Rachel Cusk brings a novelist's craft to bear on the experiences of pregnancy, 
birth, and parenting, and she does so with clarity and elegance. She writes 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 207 
Book Reviews 
rhythmically and evocatively, deploying crisp and potent images to communi- 
cate complex emotional states. This is an appealing and important memoir. 
A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother is structured thematically and 
artfully. Anecdotes-the sharp, funny, uncomfortable accounts of an antena- 
tal class and of a mother-and-toddler group-blend with reflections on 
literature, representation, and society. Cusk acknowledges her debt to Adrienne 
Rich's Of Woman Born, whose fluent meshing of the personal and political she 
echoes here. 
The structure of the book enacts a central insight of Cusk's: that 
motherhood consigns one to a realm of shapelessness, timelessness, bordering 
that "world of milk and shadows and nothingness" (84) which is early infancy. 
In rejecting linearity, Cusk exposes maternity as a rich, cumulative process. She 
also, perhaps, suggests a Kristevan "semiotic": "In motherhood a woman 
exchanges her public significance for a range of private meanings, and like 
sounds outside a certain range they can be very difficult for other people to 
identify. If one listened with a different part of oneself, one would perhaps hear 
them" (3). Cusk's multi-layered, lyrical writing encourages the development of 
this "different" listening part of the self. In doing so, it offers a contrast to the 
conventional literature on birth to which Cuskas a mother is exposed. Her dry 
and witty examination reveals the limiting assumptions and the hectoring 
certainties on which such texts are founded. 
Cusk points out that which is irreducible about birth and she poses a 
challenge to certain poststructuralist accounts of maternity that stress 
constructedness at the expense of materialism. Her notion of the body and 
mind intertwining during pregnancy recalls such thinkers as Elizabeth Grosz. 
She does not ignore bodiliness, but neither does she lapse into essentialism or 
biologism; she shows how maternal bodies are represented and managed by 
institutions and discourses. 
Cusk also explores humorously the question of childcare, raising the 
awkward issues of class and economics it involves. She is perceptive, too, in her 
treatments of the publidprivate divide and of childcare as "isolating, frequently 
boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting" (7). She is tough and unsenti- 
mental and, at the same time, frequently tender and moving. 
Cusk acknowledges in her introduction that she has not written much 
about her particular circumstances, or the people around her, and this leads at 
times to a rather bare feeling, and the misleading impression that Cusk as 
mother inhabits a vacuum. There are brief glimpses of friends and family, but 
the relational aspect of mothering- which has become key in recent theoietical 
debates-is not examined. Cusk's subject position, as a heterosexual, white, 
middle-class woman with an apparently loving and supportive partner, is also 
not explicitly or extensively investigated. But despite these omissions, this 
remains a powerful and provocative book and a significant contribution to the 
literature of maternity. It  is recommended reading. 
208 1 Volume 7, Number I 


A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother

Swanson, Susan

Book Reviews 
selves rediscovering the freedom of movement, thought, and action they knew 
as young girls. Roy's wonderful, warm, witty, outrageous, committed, caring 
Grannies show evidence of this same freedom. 
If I can offer one criticism of this book it is that there is frequent repeti- 
tion of themes across chapters. Repeatedly, readers learn about the World 
Trade Organization protests and the importance of "attitude," for example. 
But this fault does not detract from the sheer enjoyment of reading the book 
and getting to know the Grannies who inspire readers to get up from their 
armchairs and do something to save the world. As Carole Roy states near the 
close of The Raging Grannies: "To look at older women activists is an opportu- 
nity to contribute to scholarship on women's organizing and social movements 
as well as offer recognition and learn from a group ofwomen who have actively 
and publicly engaged with the issues oftheir time." In this, The Raging Grannies 
succeeds admirably. 
Intentional Grandparenting: 
A Boomer's Guide 
Peggy Edwards and Mary Jane Sterne 
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005 
Reviewed by Susan Swanson 
Being a grandparent is one of the most fulfilling stages in the life course. 
However, as Peggy Edwards and Mary Jane Sterne point out in this informative 
and entertaining book, grandparenting may be more complex in the twenty- 
first century than it was for previous generations. There have been many 
changes in marriage and parenting trends, including later age at marriage, 
increases in cohabitation, same sex unions, interracial and bicultural marriages, 
as well as divorce. Families are often mobile and live far distances apart. An 
ageing population means that grandparents are living longer and are often 
members ofthe "sandwich" or "club sandwich" generation, i.e. people who have 
frail older parents, adult children, and grandchildren - all with different needs 
and expectations. 
Based on solid evidence from experts, combinedwith insightful and often 
poignant anecdotes fromgrandparents, parents, andgrandchildren, Intentional 
Grandparenting provides readers with ten child-centred principles for effective 
grandparenting. A t  the heart of the book is the concept of being intentional- 
planning ahead and taking deliberate action to be the kind of grandparent one 
wants to be. Ten principles cover modernchallenges suchas step-grandparenting, 
distance grandparenting, and accepting and respecting one's adult children in 
182 1 Volume 7, Number 2 
Book Reviews 
their role as parents. Each chapter provides "real-life" examples of how 
individuals have put these principles into practice. The stories are inspirational 
and often humorous, and the quotes from gandchildren will make readers 
- 
laugh out loud. 
While intended for grandparents, this book will also be relevant to others, 
such as aunts and uncles, who play significant roles in children's lives. Inten- 
tional Grandparenting is a must read for all grandparents who want to enrich 
their relationships with both their grandchildren and adult children. 
Communication Among Grandmothers, 
Mothers, and Adult Daughters 
Michelle Miller-Day 
Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004 
Reviewed by Ruth Nemzoff 
Congratulations to Michelle Miller-Day for writing a readable academic study, 
Communication Among Grandmothers, Mothers, and A d d  Daughkrs. Miller- 
Day's book begins with an excellent review of the limited literature on mother- 
adult child relationships across the generations, and goes on to present a 
detailed study of three generations of several different families living in one 
town. Her qualitative analysis focuses on how intergenerational relationships 
influence individual outcomes. 
Miller-Day is to be lauded for revealing that it is the complexity of 
relationships that leads to dependency. The families in which there are many 
problems, such as anorexia, suicidal trends, and depression, tend to be "en- 
meshed" families where the younger women are of lower status in the familial 
hierarchy and depend on the older women for decision-making. The lower- 
status women often repress their own opinions and instincts in deference to the 
older women's judgments and beliefs. In contrast, in "embedded" families each 
generation is encouraged to develop and express its own opinions, which 
encourages a more open atmosphere. 
This book will appeal to those studying relationships between adult kin. 
This is also a useful book for practitioners and family therapists who want to 
help family members communicate through respectful negotiation. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 183 


Intentional Grandparenting: A Boomer's Guide

Newman, Ruby K.

The Book of Ruth and the "Grandmother Hypothesis"