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

Schwartz, Barbara

Book Reviews 
Defending Andy: One Mother's Fight to Save her 
Son from Cancer and the Insurance Industry 
Marilyn Azevedo 
Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications Inc., 2001 
Reviewed by Barbara Schwartz 
In Defending Andy: One Mother's Fight to  Save her Son Ji-om Cancer and the 
Insurance Industy, the reader bears witness to an emotional and heartfelt story 
of courage, strength, and self-doubt. The reader engages in the struggles that 
a mother undertakes while attempting to find herselfin order to assist in her 
son's arduous battle for his life. I t  is not a story about a child with cancer but 
about the effects of a child's battle with cancer on his mother. 
Azevedo's first five chapters set the tone for the journey. Immediately, her 
sense of insecurity is revealed in her discussion of herself and her family. We 
learn about her father who was never pleased with her accomplishments; her life 
as a young wife and mother forced to live with her in-laws for several years; as 
a nurse with guilt-plagued experiences; her supportive, yet often left out, 
immediate and extended family; and her private fears. As a nurse who works 
with cancer patients, she is unable to draw upon prior knowledge to generate 
effective solutions or action plans. Perhaps it is that knowledge that affects 
Azevedo's ability to proceed in a self-assured manner. Her struggle to accept 
her son's condition is weakened by her poor self-esteem, yet she is able to 
arrange appointments with multiple doctors, drive to appointments, ask 
relevant questions, be supportive, and follow through with all the doctors 
prescribe. 
Chapter 11 describes Andy's efforts to lobby in Washington, D.C. for 
better health insurance coverage, but only four pages provide specific informa- 
tion on how to work with insurance companies. Chapter 27 details how the 
family must fight the insurance company to pay for an experimental treatment. 
Azevedo shares the situation with the community which comes to Andy's aid 
through donations to pay for the treatment. Sadly, when Andy takes a turn for 
the worse, the protocol will not allow him to receive the treatment. Later, the 
insurance company cites Azevedo as being a key instrument in changing the 
processes for accessing insurance claims. 
The book describes Andy's struggle to live as a teenager and his mother's 
struggle to live a productive life. In a direct voice, Azevedo shares Andy's 
journey through life and his acceptance of his death; she is not able to 
communicate her acceptance ofAndy's situation, however. Although Azevedo 
admits that she "feels a sense of failure," Andy is immortalized through his 
mother's story of struggle and courage. Unfortunately, Azevedo does not reveal 
how to save someone from the insurance industry. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 183 
Book Reviews 
DefendingAndy is aworthy study into the human psyche. All the reader can 
do is wish Azevedo well in her search for peace and self-acceptance, and 
continued success in her attempts to help others in similar situations. 
Embalming Mom: Essays in Life 
Janet Burroway 
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002 
Reviewed by Jane Satterfield 
Embalming Mom: Essays in Life, a recent volume in the Iowa Series in Literary 
Nonfiction, tracks one woman's journey through the personal, aesthetic, and 
historical upheavals of the mid- to late twentieth century life. Beginning with 
the witty, insightfid self-portrait in "I Didn't Know Sylvia Plath," (like others 
of her generation, the writer observed the youthful Plath's ascendence at a 
careful distance, ultimately following in her footsteps to a Mademoiselle 
internship, a Cambridge Fulbright, and beyond), Burroway's experience forms 
a vivid backdrop to her analysis of female passage through pre- to post-feminist 
eras. 
As a teenager, Burroway reports, she possessed two conflicting "visions" of 
herself: artist and self-effacing mother. What she did not understand, however, 
"was that the choice might never be made, that my life could unroll, or lurch, 
or cascade, with the tension between them constant." Whiie each of the sixteen 
essays included in this collection bears the stamp of this knowledge, each 
remains stylistically distinct. The title essay, for example, is an imaginary 
dialogue between the writer and her mother. "Changes," a collage essay, 
explores the effects ofageing on the female mind and body. Whether reflecting 
on the ambiguities of raising a "Soldier Son"; describing the beauty of the 
American landscape; negotiating ideology with daily life; meditating on her 
collection of photographs or tenancy of an English garden, Burroway avoids 
sensation and stereotype while celebrating the rewards and challenges of a life 
lived as writer, lover, wife, mother, and stepmother. 
Essayist Phiip Lopate once observed that the essay's "capacity for process- 
ing doubt is part of what makes it so stimulating and tonic." A narrator who 
resists wearing learning on her sleeve and is open to self-contradiction, 
Burroway's insights are seamlessly interwoven with "trash talk that can take the 
mickey out of its own best brag" ("Trash Talk"), as when her "own presump- 
tions bang me on the forehead crude as a stepped on rake" - a literal reminder 
that "gaining perspective is a process never finishedn ("Of the Beholder"). 
Burroway's essays are stimulating and tonic indeed, making Embalming Morn 
a valuable contribution to the essay tradition. 
184 1 Volume 6, Number 2 


English

Defending Andy: One Mother's Fight to Save her Son from Cancer and the Insurance Industry

Ennis, Linda R.

fathers are becoming equal partners (even if a married father becomes unem- 
ployed he "will typically contribute no more than 30% of the domestic services 
and chiildcare" (24); and the most damaging myth of gender equality ("there is 
overwhelming and systemic evidence that mothers can never achieve economic 
equality in the labor market as things now stand" (44). 
Through an analysis of trends, recent court cases, and comparisons of 
current American policies and ideologies with those of more "family friendly" 
nations such as Canada, Norway, and Sweden, Crittenden firmly establishes 
the need for and possibility of change, not only in policy but in how the United 
States thinks about women and family. For example, she writes in Chapter 13 
that an interesting question to ask might be "why the worldwide problem of 
absentee fathers has been interpreted in Sweden as a call for equal partnering, 
while in the U.S. the same phenomenon has prompted cries for a return to 
traditional marriage, complete with breadwinning husband and stay-at-home 
wife" (246). 
Crittenden's final chapter, "How to Bring Children Up Without Putting 
Women Down," leaves the reader with a sense of hope and call to action. She 
acknowledges that "Americans may never accept the kind of compassionate 
capitalism or caring state that western Europeans demand," but she can 
nevertheless "easily imagine adding care to our pantheon of national values" 
(258). She outlines changes in the workplace, government, family, and com- 
munity that will improve the conditions for women and children, and in turn 
enhance the public good. She reminds us that none of these changes will occur 
unless we realize that our decision to mother should not necessitate our 
exclusion from full participation in the economy and society, and that we, along 
with "all the free riders-from employers to governments to husbands to 
communities-have to pitch in and help make the most important job in the 
world a top national priority-and a very good job" (258). 
Balancing Family and Work: 
Special Considerations in Feminist Therapy 
Toni Schindler Zimmerman 
New York: Haworth Press, 2001 
Reviewed by Linda R. Ennis 
Balancing Family and Work offers hope for working mothers who seek balance 
in their life at home and at work. It moves from the lived reality of Toni 
Schindler Zimmerman to the realities and reflections rooted in the research of 
the other contributors to this volume. Each chapter offers a unique vantage 
point from which to explore the issue of "balance." Bacigalupe, Haddock, et al. 
and Macdermid, et al. offer insights from clinical research, while Brockwood, 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 177 
Book Reviews 
et al., Zimmerman, et al., and Edwards, et al. discuss the results of their studies 
on accommodation, marital equality, and the impact of relocation on the 
resilience of children. Parker, et al. addresses the limitations of research in this 
area-which focuses largely on white, dual career, heterosexual couples-and 
argue for the need to expand the narrow definition of family. The volume 
concludes with an overview by Viers, et al. of the research in the field and its 
implications for therapists, as well as suggestions for future research. I appre- 
ciated Bacigalupe's insightful call for families, practitioners, and researchers to 
reject either-or choices and to search for logic in balancing family and work. 
All the contributors are sensitive to the limitations of their research. As 
Zimmerman points out, 'couples were recruited for this study on the basis of 
their ability to successfully balance family and work." At the end of the volume, 
it is encouraging to find Viers's recommendation to integrate research into 
therapy, an affirming view of the bridging potential of theory and praxis. 
Dehumanizing Discourse, Anti-Drug Law, and 
Policy in America: 
A "Crack Mother's" Nightmare 
Assata Zerai and Rae Banks 
Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002 
Reviewed by Jennifer Musial 
Dehumanizing Discourse, Anti-Drug Law, and Policy in America is an excellent 
interdisciplinary study of the rhetoric constructing the "crack mother." Zerai 
and Banks combine discourse analysis with quantitative research to argue for 
a change in public policy, one that moves away from criminalizing maternal 
drug use and toward rehabitation. Following the vein of Dorothy Roberts's 
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of liberty, this text 
examines the social construction of the poor, pregnant woman of colour. Zerai 
and Banks use intersectionality, as put forth by Patricia Hill Collins, to analyze 
how race, class, and gender affect legislation, punishment, and public opinion. 
The book is arranged in two parts: part one is qualitative and part two 
is quantitative in nature. Part one highlights the "hostile environment" that 
addicted women face. The authors look at the history of "crack momsn in 
media coverage that demonizes poor, African American pregnant women. 
Next, medical studies of "crack babies" are deconstructed to point out that 
cocaine is not the sole factor in determining the sickliness of a child. The 
authors convincingly argue that "inadequate prenatal care is the strongest 
determinants of low birth weight while drug use is not significant" (92). Here, 
178 / Volume 6, Number 2 


Balancing Family and Work: Special Considerations in Feminist Therapy

Rusch-Drutz, Corinne

Stage Mothers: A Qualitative Analysis of Women’s Work Experiences as Mothers in Toronto Theatre

Noonan, Emily J.

"The Globalization of Love": Transnational Adoption and Engagement with the Globalized World

Jordan, Nané

Force of Nature, Force of Law: Regulating Midwifery in British Columbia - An Ecofeminist Testimony

Weinberg, Merlinda

Young Single Mothers: The Work of Proving Fitness for Parenting

Dillaway, Heather E.

Mother Care Work: Employed Mothers in the New Childcare Market

Rye, Gill

Book Reviews 
woman-lose her baby due to the racism of the hospital in which they both give 
birth. 
In their introduction, Kovacic and Lynne Barrett write that "All the work 
collected here is marked by its generous intention, which we share-to capture, 
for the benefit of those who follow, our own births as parents" (m). And indeed, 
individually and collectively, these texts go a long way towards pinning down 
with words the transformative experiences of birthing and parenting, so that we 
can try to hang on to them, and remember. 
Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss 
Hope Edelman 
New York: Delta, 1994 
Reviewed by Gill Rye 
Like Lynn Davidman's more recent Motherloss (2000) (see my review in ARM 
4.2 (Fall-Winter 2002): 239), Hope Edelman's 1994 book on the impact on 
girls and women of the early loss of their mother stems from personal 
experience. Davidman's book, like Edelman's, points to a cultural silence that 
surrounds the death ofthe mother. Edelman herself diagnoses the cause of this 
silence/silencing as a "cultural resistance to mother loss [which is] actually. . . 
a symptom of a much deeper psychological denial, which originates from the 
place in our psyches where mother represents comfort and security no matter 
what our age, and where the mother-child bond is so primal that we equate its 
severing with a child's emotional death.. . . Even as adults, few women with 
mothers want to think about mother loss; still fewer want to hear about it" 
(xxii). Edelman's-and Davidman's-contributions to this painful topic go 
some way to challenge this personal and cultural denial and to further an 
understanding of the fundamental effects of mother loss. 
Edelman's personal experience is supplemented by evidence drawn from 
a sample ofwomen interviewed for the book in 1991 and from the case studies 
of a small number of selected psychotherapists. The problem of effective 
mourning is paramount. Edelman calls into question Freud's "detachment" 
view of mourning, arguing for a (life-long) process where grief"continues to get 
reworked" (24), as the loss can never be M y  resolved. While idealization of the 
lost mother is a necessary stage in the mourning process ("we soothe ourselves 
by creating the mothers we wish we'd had" (15-16), the loss cannot be 
accommodated unless, Edelman argues, ambivalent feelings with regard to the 
mother are acknowledged. Chapter 2 covers the impact of the death of the 
mother during the different developmental stages of the daughter from 
childhood to young adulthood (and, although dealt with only briefly, into later 
life). Chapter 3 considers different kinds of mother loss and their effects on the 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering ( 181 
Book Reviews 
daughter, including the anticipated loss of long illnesses (which may involve 
"anticipatory grieving and attendant guilt (71), sudden death, parental suicide 
which can be experienced, especially by children, as parental rejection, and 
abandonment (physical or emotional). 
Edelman shows how the legacy of premature mother loss continues 
throughout life: the way the mother is mourned in childhood or early adulthood 
determines how future losses are dealt with and how "securen a person the 
daughter becomes. Three chapters consider the impact on relationships: with 
the father, with siblings, and with intimate others. The final chapters explore 
the complexities of identification and differentiation in the mother-daughter 
relationship when the mother has died young. Despite this cataloguing of the 
difficult legacy of mother loss, Edelman's book ends with the assertion that 
some positive legacies of loss can be identified, including the insights gained, 
the memories that are retained, and the reparative activities of creativity and 
intellectual achievement. 
Maternal Impressions: Pregnancy and Childbirth 
in Literature and Theory 
Cristina Mazzoni 
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002 
Reviewed by Nephie Christodoulides 
In Maternal Impressions, Cristina Mazzoni explores the multiple meanings of 
maternity (pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum, breastfeeding). Maternal im- 
pressions on the fetus, impressions of the fetus on the mother, the transformed 
maternal body in gestation, and parturition constitute Mazzoni's main focus. 
Her bold reading of the continuities and discontinuities of maternity is 
informed by religion, literature, science, feminism, and psychoanalysis. 
Mazzoni invokes the fairy tale of Rapunzel in her discussion of maternal 
cravings, for example, and she reads Luke's Visitation scene of Mary and 
Elizabeth for its significance to feminist theology and not as an example of 
quickening. Turn-of-the-century Italian scientists such as Paolo Mantegazza 
and Cesare Lombroso, known for their treatises on the nature ofwomen, are 
juxtaposed with contemporary Italian feminists Adriana Cavarero and Luisa 
Muraro. In tracing the "insoluble dilemmas, contradictory solutionsn (6) of 
maternity, she considers the work of Luce Irigaray, H6kne Cixous, and Julia 
Kristeva, as well as nineteenth and early twentieth century Italian women 
novelists. 
MaternalImpressions offers a wealth of information. Mazzoni transforms 
abstract, critical knowledge into a living text that is highly recommended to 
mothers, feminists, scholars, and scientists alike. 
182 / Volume 6, Number2 


Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss

Editorial Masthead

Mullin, Amy

Book Reviews 
Pregnancy Stories: 
Real Women Share the Joys, Fears, Thrills, and 
Anxieties of Pregnancy from Conception to Birth 
Cecilia A. Cancellaro 
Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, 2001 
Reviewed by Amy Mullin 
When she was pregnant, Cecilia Cancellaro read widely on the topics of 
pregnancy and childbirth, but she found few accounts ofwomen's experiences 
of these events. This book seeks, in part, to make up for the dearth ofwomen's 
stories of pregnancy. In collecting the stories of 38 pregnant women, and those 
of several of their partners, Canceller0 hopes to give readers a sense of the 
diverse ways in which women experience pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum 
period. 
The book is divided into ten chapters, each ofwhich tells the stories offive 
to 12 women. The chapters are organized thematically and, alongwith sections 
devoted to each trimester of pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period, 
include accounts of women's experiences of prenatal diagnostic testing, preg- 
nancy complications, and pregnancy loss. The last chapter gives partners' 
perspectives on pregnancy and childbirth. 
All the pregnant women reside in the United States. Articulate and self- 
reflective, they range in age, social class, and the number of pregnancies they 
have experienced. Most are married, one is single, and one has a same-sex 
194 1 Volume 6, Number 1 
partner. Despite some initial ambivalence, all the women want to be pregnant. 
The women detail their experiences, describe the changes in their bodies 
and their relationships, and their emotional reactions to these changes. Because 
many of their stories include accounts ofphysical and emotional discomfort, as 
well as serious complications and pregnancy loss, this volume is not intended 
to allay anxiety. Instead, it provides a realistic sense of the bodily and emotional 
changes experienced by pregnant women. It  also shows that there are many 
ways to be pregnant; that there is no one way to be a supportive partner of a 
pregnant woman; that the transition to motherhood, although replete with 
moments ofjoy, is complicated; and that women find ways to cope with stress, 
loss, and sorrow. 
Pregnancy Stories will appeal to pregnant women, but the book deserves a 
wider audience. Those who have experienced pregnancy might find that this 
book gives them an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences, which are 
rarely made public. Those who are wondering whether or not to become 
pregnant, and those who seek to support a partner through pregnancy, will 
appreciate the realistic account provided by Cancellaro. 
Before Roe: 
Abortion Policy in the United States 
Rosemary Nossiff 
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. 
Reviewed by Susanna Jones 
Reading Rosemary Nossiff S Before Roe is analogous to playing a game of chess 
with a strong opponent who has the tenacity and vigilance to win. In the game 
of chess, the player with the stronger pieces on the board may appear to be 
winning, but one move can radically alter the balance of power-as in the 
struggle that led up to the winning of abortion rights. Before Roe is a fabulous 
book that traces the intense political and religious developments leading up to 
the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973. T o  make this history even 
more compelling, Nossiff begins by explaining the complicated and different 
party arrangements of New York and Pennsylvania and how abortion policy 
was directly linked to parties in power and interest groups that emerged. Nossiff 
moves beyond party and machine structures and highlights the role of compet- 
ing discourses (legal, religious, medical, and moral) that heavily influenced 
abortion policy. 
Chapter three charts the emergence of feminist groups, along with 
antifeminist groups, that also shaped developments in abortion law. The book 
is full of legal cases that trace rulings that mirror the cat and mouse game of 
chess. It also names and identifies key individuals in both states who were 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 195 


Pregnancy Stories: Real Women Share the Joys, Fears, Thrills and Anxieties of Pregnancy from Conception to Birth