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

Jarvie, Sandra

Book Reviews 
Inky is the nickname of Halliday's four-year-old daughter India, a sylph- 
like creature whose love of being unclothed makes her appear destined to take 
after her mother, a former performance artist. With impish Inky and her baby 
boy Milo, Halliday struggles in the motherhood trenches, determined to be 
true to herself while she raises kids in the "culinary and cultural diaspora" of 
New York, a city that she embraces as the anithesis of the soul-deadening 
suburbs of her Midwestern childhood. Halliday is a stay-at-home mom while 
her husband temps at Citibank, and she finds the only way to fight off the 
"isolation and despair" of her radical new lifestyle is to create a 'zine that gives 
full expression to her mothering self and her artist self. The Big Rumpus gives 
her room to elaborate on the topics covered in her 'zine - taking a stand in the 
worhng mothers versus stay-at-home mothers debate (she concludes that we 
each must do what works for us), reliving the adventures of breastfeeding Inky 
into late toddlerhood, discussing how she fights the commercialization of the 
holidays, and why she convinced her husband not to have their son circumsized. 
Throughout The Big Rumpus, Halliday is insightful, funny, and candid 
about what she perceives as her strengths (she dresses Milo in Inky's hand-me- 
downs despite the disapproval of other playground mothers) and foibles as a 
parent (Inky swears like a sailor). I felt my own feelings about the challenges of 
motherhood validated when Halliday confesses, "the baby had me in such a 
choke hold that I felt nostalgic for the days when mopping the floor didn't 
require hours of strategic preparation." What Halhday expertly avoids is sweet 
sentimentality and the cliches that abound in other tales about becoming a 
mother. Even her soul-baring report of Inky's first two weeks spent in the 
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and her love letter to Milo at the book's 
conclusion crackle with her quick wit. "Nobody wants to read about a perfect 
mother," writes Halliday, and so The Big Rumpus, like the East Village Inky 
before it, is a highly readable account of an imperfectly real mother. 
The Politics of Fertility Control 
McFarlane, Deborah R., and Kenneth J. Meier. 
New York: Chatham House Publishers. 
Reviewed by Sandra Jarvie 
In The Politics of Fertility Control, McFarlane and Meier examine what "looms 
behind abortion policies" and review the politics of fertility control in the 
United States over the past thirty years. Convinced that nearly all induced 
abortions are preventable by effective contraception, McFarlane and Meier 
suggest "that abortion politics are part of a larger political struggle aboutvalues" 
which they term "morality politics." 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 1 193 
Book Reviews 
This book provides an historical perspective on the use, control, and social 
importance of contraception and abortion. It  covers the 1960s through to the 
1990s and considers the politics and policies concerned with family planning 
and abortion and their implications for women. The authors point out that 
sexuality is framed by "strong moral overtones in American society." They 
contrast "ideal" sexual behaviour with the "real" sexual behaviour of most 
adolescent and adult Americans, a contrast that has serious implications for 
fertility control policies. McFarlane and Meier argue that American public 
policies reflect the extreme moralistic beliefs of people but not their actual 
behaviour. 
Interestingly, McFarlane and Meier found that abstinence is ineffective as 
a long-term method of contraception; instead, the promotion of contraceptive 
knowledge, contraceptive development, and contraceptive services is far more 
efficacious for women. Their findings are supported by research that has 
"concluded that about 80 percent of the decline in overall pregnancy rates was 
due to improved contraceptive use." 
Expecting Trouble: What Expectant Parents 
Should Know about Prenatal Care in America 
Strong, Thomas H., Jr. 
New York: New York University Press, 2000 
Review by Maria Mikolchak 
Three years ago, pregnant with my fourth child, in perfect touch with my own 
body, and fully convinced that, at least in my case, the main outcome ofprenatal 
care would be a waste of time for me and profit for the obstetrician, I had my 
first prenatal visit after 32 weeks of pregnancy-in time to discuss practical 
matters ofwhere to give birth. 
Thomas Strong's Expecting Trouble: What Expectant Parents Should Know 
about Prenatal Care in America fully supports my attitude toward prenatal care 
that, at the time, many considered negligent of my own health and potentially 
harmful to my unborn baby. Strong's book calls into question the prevailing 
(and unconfirmed) assumption that prenatal care is a form of preventive 
medicine that can reduce the number of premature births and/or infant deaths 
in the United States. The author shows that in Europe, where the average 
number of prenatal visits is less than in the States, the mortality rate is 
significantly lower. In fact, the United States is ranked 23 among industrialized 
nations for its mortality rate. Strong suggests that it is the quality-not 
quantity-of prenatal care that is important. 
194 1 Volume S, Number 2 


English

The Politics of Fertility Control

Katz, Isabella Colalillo

lsabella Colalillo Katz 
A Woman's Identity 
they wanted to marry me off 
I was barely 14 
a young man from the old village 
came to visit 
three weekends in a row 
all the way from Hamilton 
part of me was intrigued 
another part scared to death 
in my room, 
I studied my French grammar 
ignored him 
he talked to my parents 
in the welcoming kitchen 
I felt funny 
a bit like a good horse at a fair 
my tender years my only defense 
against any kind of quick agreement 
as I studied the pluperfect subjunctive 
I set my mind the task 
of finding a loophole in his plans 
I already understood the trap of marriage 
the role it played in their traditions- 
marriage was all they seemed to plan for 
78 / Volume S, Number l 
to talk about- 
interminable Sunday afternoons, 
evenings of paesani 
talking about who had married whom 
who had established 
what relationship with what family 
over the past hundred years 
they remembered everyone's name, 
date of birth, death and marriage dates 
all offspring were known by name 
family lineage 
carefully tracked for several generations 
and even those who went to America 
the promised land of peasants, 
were not lost to the tribal stories. 
repeated in these conversations 
Identity 
that afternoon and every Sunday 
that followed 
my parents claimed the purity 
of my lineage: it was, 
they assured the young man, 
more elevated than some 
honourable pedigrees on both sides 
no scandals of any consequence, 
my father descended from Spanish blood, 
my mother from French aristocracy 
landowners, travellers 
all good stock and traceable 
I was more saleable than some 
a good catch- 
pretty, smart, educated 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 79 
Isabella Colalillo Katz 
a promising cook 
and even though 
I could be headstrong 
and too forthright 
too English 
I could be counted on 
to do the right thing 
especially in a family crisis 
for three weeks, 
each sunday, the boy came to visit 
he was twenty or so 
and though anxious to marry 
he promised to wait for me 
if they agreed to the match 
and so, they went over my pedigree 
counted my wifely attributes 
and each Sunday 
the visitor asked my parents about marriage: 
She's keen 072 her studies, 
said my mother wistfully, 
not too loud, 
with the voice of a proper woman 
She's keen to study all right, 
added my father, 
ignoring my mother 
but she'll soon be ready, 
she'll make some paesano a good wife. 
Identity 3 
Not me, said I to myself 
listening from behind the closed 
door of my bedroom 
I'm leaving this transplanted village life- 
leaving it far behind- 
one day it will be a part me 
like this physics I don't understand. 
I'll pass the test tomorrow, 
and then it will be gone. 
80 1 Volume S, Number l 
A Woman's Identity 
I'll become someone else 
someone 
even the familiar stars won't know 
more than marriage 
and housework 
I want to discover 
myself, 
learn everything, 
go everywhere 
become the one 
I still don't know 
the one they don't suspect 
me of being 
the woman 
they can never 
never 
sell into bondage. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 81 


A Woman's Identity

Parham, Mary G.

Mary G. Parham 
Swimming with My Daughters 
I'm lurching into menopause; 
my daughters meanwhile start their first periods. 
Our bodies are obsessed with bleeding and breeding. 
Some of us are drying out, some flooding red. 
I sweat and plod and my girls rage and rush, 
all servants of the same ancient master. 
They used to dress up in my hats and heels; 
now they imitate me and my mothers 
in a much more serious game, 
that game no woman sits out. 
So we're all three in there now, swimming hard 
through a heavy green sea of ova. 
Sometimes we sink and gasp, but 
our uteruses fill with air and float us up 
like air bladders inside fish. 
My youngest daughter stands on the shore 
playing keep-away with the long-fingered waves 
that grab at her teasing feet. 
Her small hand rises to wave, 
her high thin voice ripples out to us: 
'Wait for me! I want to go, too." 
Her lifetime's million eggs already squirm urgently within her, 
dear chlld. I call to her, wave her back to land: 
"Put on your life jacket, sweetie, and rest up." 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 53 


Swimming with My Daughters

Thompson, Ruthe

Book Reviews 
curriculum is towards the workplace. Conversely, the "safe haven" approach 
places mothers in separate classes. This keeps them protected but supports and 
encourages their independence. Kelly concludes that aspects of both ap- 
proaches best serve the mothers' needs. 
Kelly's examination ofthe political construct ofteen motherhood provides 
an understanding of the background on which the two approaches are based. 
W e  hear the mothers talking, their voices woven amongst the framework of 
authoritative and marginal discourses on teen pregnancy. Lack of public 
support for teen mothers is linked to the perceived public need to deter teen 
motherhood and the notion that teen pregnancy is linked to a cycle of poverty. 
Teen mothers are not seen as "good mothersn; they are not lauded for accepting 
responsibility for their children; and their decisions, even appropriate ones, are 
challenged constantly. Schools use teen mothers as role models for other 
students, both as "shining stars" and as "reality communicators." Thus, the 
individual mother is made to shoulder the burden of change while the larger 
society is left unchanged. 
Kelly juxtaposes media stories and statements from bureaucrats with 
stories ofteen mothers. The individual stories describe challenges, frustrations, 
and successes and they push the boundaries ofwhat "inclusion" might mean for 
all involved. As Kelly concludes, "an inclusive school is impossible to separate 
from an inclusive society." 
KidStress 
Witkin, Georgia. 
New York, Penguin, 1999. 
Reviewed by Ruthe Thompson 
Kidstress struck several vital chords in me. As the mother of a 17-year-old who 
announced shortly after transferring fiom a rural to an urban high school that 
she would have to start drinking coffee to sustain homework and extracurricular 
activities in her faster-paced city life, the book's suggestions for helping 
children deal with daily stresses were enlightening. And as aparent living in the 
metropolitan United States amid daily news of anthrax deaths and exposures, 
thewar in Afghanistan, and investigations ofthe Sept. 11 attacks on the World 
Trade Center and Pentagon, this slim handbook has reminded me to take 
numerous deep breaths while helping my daughter complete college applica- 
tions and prepare to launch into an increasingly stressful world. 
Written by Georgia Witkin, a Clinical Psychologist at the Mt. Sinai 
School of Medicine in New York City and author of eight books on women's 
health, KidStress offers a compendium ofuseful strategies for teaching children 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering / 221 
Book Reviews 
to cope with life today. Using the Internet to reach a broad audience, Witkin 
- 
surveyed 800 children aged nine to twelve about their stress and compared their 
responses to the results of surveys taken by their parents. She discovered that 
children are more stressed than ever and due to agreater variety ofissues: sibling 
rivalries, parental divorce and blended families, school expectations, peer 
pressures, exposure to violence in the media and fears about world conditions. 
Most surprising is Witkin's discoverythat parents surveyed had not taken a full 
measure of their children's stress. Witkin reports that parents badly underes- 
timate how much children worry, how alone many of them feel, how much 
sleep they lose due to stress, and how often they are fearful of confiding in their 
parents. The adults Witkin surveyed underestimated school stress and overes- 
timated peer pressure, underestimated how often children's fears were realistic, 
and underestimated a deep altruism that made many children sad about 
problems afflicting family, community, and world. 
While making clear connections between emotional stress, physical ill- 
ness, and other problems over-stressed children may experience, KidShess 
focuses most heavily on how parents can teach children to combat anxieties and 
fears with useful lists of tips categorized by issue. Witkin takes note of gender 
differences in coping and points out that parental modeling, birth order, 
income and other factors can affect how well children manage. One drawback 
of the volume is that it has been carelessly proofread; small diction and other 
errors detract from readability in numerous places. In addition, the book could 
use an update to account for publications and events since its l999 appearance. 
For example, Witkin cites two long-term studies of how divorce affects 
children by psychologist Judith Wallerstein but was not able to include a third 
published in 2000, The UnexpectedLegay $Divorce. As this thirdvolume offers 
important insights about lessening stress for children when parents consider 
divorce, it would make an important addition to the information Kidstress 
provides. 
The Lost Daughters of China: 
Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and 
the Search for a Missing Past 
Evans, Karin. 
New York: Jeremy P. TarchedPutnam, 2000. 
Reviewed by Andrea Riesch Toepell 
Karin Evans and her husband wanted to have a child. For most people, this 
desire is fulfilled easilythrough a pregnancy carried to term. For some, however, 
10 to 25 percent of all couples (depending on age), it is not so simple. In The 
222 / Volume 5, Number 1 


KidStress

Cunningham, Carolyn

Emerging Academics: Thoughts on Becoming (and Not Becoming) Mothers

Lawn, Jenny

Born Under the Sign of Joan: Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Mommie Dearest, and the Uses of Maternal Ambivalence

Nemzoff, Ruth

Book Reviews 
While these diseases affect many women, they often are not recognized 
or diagnosed, either by the suffering women or by professionals. Many women 
cannot clearly identify what is bothering them and they often do not know 
where to seekhelp so they canget the attention they require. This bookprovides 
descriptions that will aid in this identification. In fact, there is no single portrait 
of an alcoholic woman; there are many. Because of its many manifestations, 
alcoholism often is difficult to identify by others and by alcoholic women 
themselves. Even with the identification, asking for and finding help usually is 
a lonely and difficult task. The same challenges confront women who are 
clinically depressed. 
Peets uses the stories of others, as well as her own personal story of her 
mother and family. An important aspect of this book is the connection the 
author draws between her mother's alcoholism and depression and her own life. 
Across the book, Peets offers as examples the many preventive steps against 
alcoholism and depression that she has taken and will continue to take 
throughout her life. 
I congratulate Christine Peets for her honesty and courage. Writing With 
Humor and Hope clearly was cathartic for the author and the book will assist 
readers who hope to interrupt the multigenerational effects of substance abuse 
and depression in their own lives. Peets includes a selective bibliography and a 
useful list of international resources. 
Midwifery and Childbirth in America 
Rooks, Judith Pence, S. Charles, and M. D. Mahan. 
Temple Univ Press; 1999. 
Reviewed by Ruth Nemzoff 
Midwlfey and Childbirth in America is not a book to give your pregnant 
daughter to read in her spare moments. It is too comprehensive, well re- 
searched, and detailed. But it is an appropriate gift for anyone who may be 
planning to attend nursing or medical school. Rooks has written a comprehen- 
sive, balanced, and eminently readable book about midwifery and childbirth in 
America. The book provides a complete history of the accreditation, licensure, 
and education of nurse midwives and direct entry midwives. It also provides 
data on the use of midwives. Most interesting is Rooks's review of studies that 
have assessed the quality, safety, and effectiveness of midwifery in the United 
States. She notes that surprisingly few studies compare the effectiveness of 
specific interventions used by midwives and obstetricians. 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering ( 207 
Book Reviews 
This book gives a clear explanation of the differences between the 
philosophies of midwives and physicians. While midwives see birth as a natural 
process needing little intervention, physicians view birth as potentially danger- 
ous. Despite the sometimes uncooperative relations between midwives and 
medical doctors, Rooks explains the profound impact midwives have had on 
medical practitioners. The influence of midwives has led to the cessation of 
some medical practices that potentially caused harm to birthing mothers, such 
as shaving pubic hair and giving enemas to labouring women. 
Although she recognizes the role of obstetricians in complicated births, 
Rooks is convinced that midwiferyprovides safe, effective childbirth assistance. 
She notes, for example, that normal births attended by midwives result in fewer 
cesarean sections, fewer episiotomies and other expensive interventions. T o  
ensure appropriate care for birthing women, Rooks suggests that obstetricians 
and midwives alike assess all birth interventions. 
Various laws and the need for insurance coverage, as well as the dwindling 
number of births per thousand in America, provide disincentives for allowing 
midwives to practice in the United States. Physician supervision of midwives 
is required and hospital births are advantaged. As a result, it has been difficult 
for midwifery to gain a foothold in the United States, despite the data from 
Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan that strengthens the case 
for the use of midwives as safe birth attendants. 
Birth by Design: 
Pregnancy, Maternity Care, and Midwifery in 
North America and Europe 
Devries, Rayrnond, Cecilia Benoit, Edwin R. Van Teijlingen, 
and Sirpa Wrede, eds. 
New York: Routledge, 2001. 
Reviewed by Amy Mullin 
Birth by Design provides well-researched, cross-cultural comparisons of mater- 
nity care practices in nine European and North American countries, with a 
heavy emphasis on Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the 
United States. While the countries involved differ in the ways they fund health 
care, all are highly developed, technologically sophisticated countries. Most 
medical specialties in these countries are marked by technical uniformity, but 
the countries involved are markedly different in their approaches to maternity 
care. They differ in the extent to which they see pregnancy as a medical 
208 1 Volume 5, Number 1 


Midwifery and Childbirth in America

Editorial Masthead

Weinbaum, Batya

Book Reviews 
Recollections of M y  Life as a Woman: 
The New York Years 
di Prima, Diane. 
New York: Viking, 2001. 
Reviewed by Batya Weinbaum 
Diane di Prima writes about being both a mother and a poet. Coming of age 
in New York in the 1950s, di Prima participated in the Beat literary movement, 
edited a literary journal with then Leroy Jones (now Baraka), associated with 
dancers, hung out in the Village, kept journals, and had babies. En route to her 
job at the legendary Phoenix Bookstore, she walked her months-old baby girl 
in a stroller down the streets of the Village. 
Di Prima's story of connectingwith the physical desire of her body to have 
a child, all the while feeling that a man was "incidental and unimportant to the 
process" (157), resonates with the experience ofmanywomen today. She set out 
to find a father for her child, refused to use birth control, and for the first time 
in her life felt at war with her art. "I was apoet, I had work to do" (161) had been 
the dictum guiding her life. Then, her guiding sense changed: "But this simple 
thing that was looming ahead of me, just a little way down the road, this 
inevitable, as I felt it, next step in life: to have a baby, to become a mother, this 
seemed to hold the essence ofwhat I needed now to know. To be. In order to 
be a woman and a poet. There should, it seemed to me, be no quarrel between 
these two aims: to have a baby and be a poet" (162). 
Unfortunately, di Prima experienced conflict. Former male mentors and 
friends would lecture her inappropriately. She felt she had "enough to do after 
childbirth just recovering without being subjected to unwanted pressure and 
moralizing" (167). For inspiration and strength, di Prima drew on her female 
lineage. Her mother had raised her on Pearl S. Buck's novel, TAe GoodEartA, 
in which "the woman has her baby in the field and goes right back to work" 
(168). Her mother raised her to believe that women had to bear more pain than 
men. Hence, she felt empowered and invincible as she birthed her first child, 
"more than a little arrogant and impatient (168). She finally was whisked away 
into an elevator and "shoveled into a cot in a labor room" where she was 
surrounded by6'six or eight screaming, moaning, or semi-unconscious women" 
(169). Even the brave poet had to lose some of her bravado then. 
This book-which focuses on one woman's struggle to be both a mother 
and a poet-will be usefil in courses on motherhood. 
202 1 Vohme S, Number 2 


Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years

Hammond, Merryl

Book Reviews 
respect displayed by the CO-parents for each other. Failure of the shared 
parenting experience is most often cited as a result of financial considerations, 
however. This occurs when the couple abandons their practice of shared 
parenting, particularly when one parent (often the male) is able to earn more 
money as the sole breadwinner than ifboth parents work part-time. In addition, 
Ehrensaft found that men in shared parenting households are more likely to 
entertain fantasies about adopting the traditional model ofparenting. Ehrensaft 
discovered that since a woman's desire for shared parenting appears to be the 
prime impetus in adopting this parenting style, failure of CO-parenting often 
results in divorce. 
Interestingly, even in households where shared parenting is successful, 
gender inequalities between the behaviours of mothers and fathers are appar- 
ent. A core difference between men and women's approaches to parenting is the 
issue of engagement. The mothering self of a woman is intermingled with all 
of her parts. This contrasts with fathers for whom parenting is something "to 
be done." As a result, men who seek to balance work, parenting, and time for 
themselves tend to be more successful than women, since it is easier for them 
to do all three compared to women who attempt to be all three. Hence, guilty 
feelings associated with separation from a child are far more common among 
women than men. When a woman leaves her child, she leaves behind an 
integral part of herself. When a man leaves his child he simply stops what he 
is doing-the loss ofthe child's presence does not pose a threat to his core being. 
Children's Interests/Mothers' Rights: 
The Shaping of America's Child Care Policy 
Michel, Sonya. 
New Haven: Yale Univeristy Press 1999. 
Reviewed by Merryl Hammond 
Although dense and dry, Children's InterestdMother's Rights is a meticulous, 
historical account of the child care system (or rather the lack thereof) in the 
United States, from its roots in the colonial era, through the early nineteenth 
century, the Victorian era, the Depression and World War I1 years, through to 
the present. Author Sonya Michel poses a central question: Why has the 
United States failed to develop a comprehensive system of public day care, 
when all the other democratic, market societies (Sweden, France, Japan, 
Australia, and Canada are mentioned briefly) have done so? 
Readers learn about various child care options that working mothers in the 
United States have used over the centuries: "baby farms," boarding institutions 
202 / Volume 5, Number 1 
Book Reviews 
for "half-orphans," poor houses, "little mothers" (i.e. the use of young girls as 
child-minders), day nurseries, infant schools, crkches, kindergartens, children's 
shelters, and homes for infants. Michel is scrupulous in linking developments 
in the childcare arena to forces at work in the larger society, such as industri- 
alization, immigration, urbanization, and war. She places each child care- 
related "development" or innovation within a specific historical and ideological 
context. 
Sonya Michel is a history professor and director ofwomen's studies at the 
University of Illinois. Scholars will appreciate her rigorous research, attention 
to detail, 84 pages of endnotes, and detailed index-all ofwhich weighs heavily 
in this publication's favour. However, this is one of the most poorly designed 
books I have read in some time. Both type and margins are too small, sub- 
headings too few, and most of the illustrations and photographs are too small 
to be of any use-all of which detracted severely from my enjoyment of the 
book. 
Constructing Lived Experiences: 
Representations of Black Mothers in Child 
Sexual Abuse Discourses 
Bernard, Claudia. 
Burlington: Ashgate, 2001. 
Reviewed by Sara Collings 
Claudia Bernard's research into black women's experiences of mothering 
children who have been sexually abused is an important addition to feminist 
literature which explores the blame and responsibility that is placed on non- 
offending mothers of sexually abused children. T o  date, the particular dilem- 
mas that black mothers face in such a crisis have received little attention. 
Bernard's qualitative interviews draw on the experience of thirty black 
mothers who self-identified as blackBritish ofAfrican Caribbean originwhose 
children were either abused by a family member or by an adult who was known 
to the family. These women spoke about their coping strategies and their 
experiences with seeking help. Bernard's interviews suggest that these mothers 
faced particular stresses as they cared for their children, stresses that arose as 
they attempted to mother in a racist society. Bernard is particularly concerned 
with understanding how "divisions constructed around race and social class 
create a very different set of circumstances within which [black mothers] 
respond to the abuse of their children" (1). 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 203 
