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

Thacker, Julie

Book Reviews 
Looking Back, Looking Forward: 
Mothers, Daughters, and Feminism 
Guest Editorial Board: Sharon Abbey, Brenda Cranney, Jeanne Maranda, 
Evelyn Marrast, Ruby K. Newman, Andrea O'Reilly, Christy Taylor 
Canadian Woman Studiedes cabiers de lafemme 18.2-3 (Summer-Fall 1998) 
Reviewed by Julie Thacker 
This special double issue of Canadian Woman Studies celebrates an important 
milestone-its twentieth anniversary-and 30 years of feminism. The issue, 
which includes poems and pictures, is designed to spark discussion in Women's 
Studies courses about women's equality, why patriarchy needs to be disman- 
tled, and the successes of feminism. 
The guest editors describe their threefold objectives for this special issue: 
"to expand the definition of motherhood," to celebrate the diversity of mother- 
daughter interactions, and "to validate the interdependence between feminism 
and mother-daughter empowerment" (5). I applaud the vision of the editors 
and the courage of the contributors whose work is gathered here under four 
- - 
themes: empowerment, agency, narrative, and motherline. I heartily recom- 
mend this special issue of Canadian Woman Studies, it offers a moving record 
of the vision of past and present feminists. 
Sharon Abbey's article, "Mentoring My Daughter: Contradictions and 
Possibilities," is particularlyrelevant to my own situation. I and my 19 year-old 
daughter struggle, much like Abbey and her daughter, to honour rather than 
discount our own acquired knowledge. Abbey's wisdom, along with several 
other women's active mentoring, will help me guide and nurture my daughter 
through pitfalls as we adapt "to ongoing transformation; honoring the power 
of dependency, individuation, and embodied wisdom" (26). Abbey's prescrip- 
tion for reciprocal mentoring of our daughters is a new method of parenting 
that has the potential to challenge and dismantle the dominant patriarchal 
system. 
The section devoted to the theme of agency examines policies and 
institutions that have sought to sever the mother-daughter relationship: 
research methodology; government control and policy formation; the media; 
and religion. The articles in this section urge readers to be vigdant and to resist 
patriarchal power structures. Ruby K. Newman's "Survival Narratives of 
Ethiopian Jewish Mothers and Daughters," for example, describes mothers 
and daughters who have fled Ethiopia for Israel. The daughters take pride in 
their mothers' courage in leading their families on their difficult journeys and 
adapting to their new culture. 
In "Looking Back, Looking Forward," the final article in the issue, Ursula 
M. Franklin states that the massacre of 14 youngwomen on 6 December 1989 
218 1 Volume 4, Number 1 
Book Reviews 
at L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal is a reminder of the chilly-and 
chiing-climate for all women. She calls on young women to remember and 
support their ageing mentors, and to remember that feminism provides "a way 
oflife that our society.. . desperatelyrequires and thatwe need to practice." Her 
article provides a fitting conclusion to a well-written and finely edited issue that 
will inspire readers. 
Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: 
Acts of Love and Courage 
Rachel Josefowitz Siegel, Ellen Cole, Susan Steinberg-Oren 
New York: Haworth Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Rivka Greenberg 
All mothers are challenged daily to address multiple forces in their lives. These 
forces include their children, partners, families, society, religion, work, and 
social issues, as well as their own, individual needs. For many Jewish mothers, 
defining the place of Judaism as a significant value in their lives, responsively 
and proactively, is an enigmatic and perplexing struggle. For earlier genera- 
tions, the primary sources of support for mothers were the women in their 
extended families: mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins. In- 
creased mobility, economic shifts, and work outside of the home have dimin- 
ished the influence of the extended family and mothers have had to find new 
ways to meet their need for support, guidance, and community. This is 
particularly true within the context of Jewish community, where many Jewish 
mothers struggle to find a place for Judaism in their lives. Today, many Jewish 
women - unaffiliated, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative - seek 
community outside of synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Moreover, 
Jewish women and their families are no longer living in "Jewishn sections of 
cities, lessening their opportunities for connecting with other Jewish women. 
So how can Jewish mothers find the communal support they need? Jewish 
Mothers Tell Their Stories provides that much needed sense of community. 
This book promotes connection among Jewish mothers throughout the 
world. Thirty-five chapters offer thirty-five insights from Jewish mothers 
worldwide who share their thoughts and experiences and, in the process, serve 
as role models and provide support. The six section topics - tradition; love; 
Jewish values; Jewish identity; spirituality and religion; and the real world - 
address key aspects of women's lives. The editors have succeeded in moving 
beyond the stereotypes ofJewish women. The women gathered here represent 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 219 


English

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Mothers, Daughters, and Feminism

Bergman, Jill

"Amazon of Industry": Maternal Realism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's What Diantha Did

Editorial Masthead

Park, Shelley M.

Book Reviews 
confuse self-esteem with self-centredness, as the author points out. Many 
children who seem to have a high level of self-confidence are hiding under 
negative feelings of self. 
This bookisvaluable for parents, teachers, caregivers, and extended family 
members who deal with children and have the ability to enforce positive self- 
esteem on a day to day basis. Most parents may also consider that once their 
children become teenagers or young adults that it is too late to make changes 
to encourage positive self-esteem. Jean Illsley Clarke points out that it is never 
too late to instill positive self-esteem and gives examples ofways to interact with 
children of all ages. The author suggests that parents can use her book to feel 
better about their parenting abilities during various stages of family life. 
Family Pictures: 
A Philosopher Explores the Familiar 
Laura Duhan Kaplan 
Chicago and LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Press, 1998 
Reviewed by Shelley M. Park 
In Family Pictures, Laura Duhan Kaplan provides snapshots of family life as 
reflected through the lens of philosophy. The book is written, in part, for a 
philosophical audience to whom Kaplan commends storytelling as a method- 
ology that blends "outer and inner lives," effecting a symbiosis of "concrete 
routines with abstract thought about their larger meanings" (138). Yet, this 
delightful book is readily accessible to an interdisciplinary audience. Indeed, 
any person with a family life-in particular, those with parents, children, lovers, 
in-laws, or pets--will find material here that invites self- reflection, as well as 
considerable laughter. Whether on a Hawaiian honeymoon, chasing a toddler 
in an art museum, wearing her deceased mother-in-lads clothes, suffering 
from back pain, or killing fleas in her living room, Kaplan sees both the humour 
in, and the spiritual meaning of, her everyday activities. In taking us on her 
journey, she provokes us to do the same. 
Family Pictures is divided into three sections: Marriage, Adult Daughter, 
and Mothering. ARM readers will take special interest in the latter two 
sections. In the second section, Kaplan explores her relationship with her 
mother, her mother-in-law, and her father. Kaplan reflects honestly and self- 
critically upon her frustration with her mother-in-law's superficial emphasis on 
social etiquette and her mother's equally adamant resistance to social expecta- 
tions. While Kaplan seems to identify most closely with her father, Kaplan's 
criticisms of her mother-in-law's spiritual shortcomings and her mother's 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 185 
Book Reviews 
social and ethical faux pas give way to an admiration for their ways of being in 
the world. Kaplan finally honours both mothers, reflecting on the lessons to be 
learned from each. Her mother-in-law's decisive sense of order helped to 
establish harmonyin a household that gives way to self-interest after her death 
(44-45). And her mother's "shocking refusal to assume the role of caretaker 
provokes others to re-examine their static self-characterizations (53-55). By 
these stories, we come to understand how parental strengths and weaknesses 
are not always easy to disentangle and how various styles ofparenting may each 
be effective in their own right. 
In the final section, Kaplan draws on her own experiences of mothering to 
reflect on questions ofpacifism, loss ofidentity, dreams ofdeath, and the ethical 
imperatives ofparenting that enable us to bridge the self-other divide. Kaplan 
neither romanticizes nor devalues her experience of mothering, and chooses 
instead to reveal the ambivalences, ambiguities, and complexities that accom- 
pany that experience. Looking at her vulnerable newborn, for example, 
prompts Kaplan to explore the contradiction between the "increased esteem for 
the value of human life" that emerges from mothering and the potential for 
violence against others that emerges from a mother's singular commitment to 
advancing her own children's interests (84-85). Chasing her toddler through 
an art exhibit, Kaplan acknowledges the attraction of the "dream of silent 
passivity and subordination" embodied in fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty 
while simultaneously denying that this is the type of relationship she wants. 
Many feminist mothers will share Kaplan's ambivalence concerning this 
"dream of relief from mothering" (97). 
Overall, however, Kaplan's portraits of mothering are happy family 
pictures that reveal the "comfortable life" of a middle-class, professional woman 
(X). Women with less comfortable lives doubtlessly woulh provide narratives 
of mothering that differ from Kaplan's. This is one shortcoming of theorizing 
based on first-person experience. A strength of Kaplan's method, however, is 
its ability to "weave a tapestry ofideas, relationships, regrets, and joys" in which 
others may"both lose themselves and find themselves" (125). In theorizing her 
experience, Kaplan is not seeking to universalize that experience, but hoping to 
learn from it and, in sharing her learning, to provoke others to reflect on their 
stories. 
186 1 Volume 3, Number2 


Family Pictures: A Philosopher Explores the Familiar

Tuten, Nancy Lewis

This Giving Birth: Pregnancy and Childbirth in American’s Women Literature

Scott, Jill

Jill Scott 
terra materna 
earth mother, Mother Earth, 
terra materna, terraFrma, 
earth, dirt, mud 
mummy muck, mummy mud. 
you heavy soil, 
root me with gravity, 
wind this vortex down. 
spiral me to my nadir, 
surrender me 
clayed slime to the deep. 
chthonian magic 
binds my sphered belly, 
bulges me wide. 
geocynclinal, this baby 
earths its way to breath. 
unafraid to celebrate, 
it squeezes itself 
a patient miracle, 
and beautifies 
a tiny path to grace. 
a birth and a burst, 
then one,sententious stare, 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 55 
Jill Scott 
baby gulps a first gasp 
and pinks its own joy. 
what force? 
what potency? 
what manifest will? 
lend me your courage, 
infant bundle, 
bathe me in your pluck. 
shadow me, spirit me, 
embrace me in your might. 
flower me open, 
nurse me 
from maid 
to mother. 
Earth. 
56 / Volume 3, Number 2 


terra materna

Norman, Renee

Renee Norman 
Mother Troll 
suddenly 
i am the enemy 
a troll 
(her word not mine) 
who rampages through private diaries 
plunges through boxes of keepsakes 
aims bug-out eyes over to the letters 
crawling on the computer screen 
grabbing secrets 
the truth of the matter 
is both more and less than that 
a desire to understand and keep connected 
a spilled gathering of memorabilia 
beneath the changing of the sheets 
S a page left open that beckons 
(read me) 
mother troll 
is not just rifling through scraps of memory 
trying to steal the soul 
out of teenage independence 
she is making beds of netting 
a place for both of us to fall upon 
when blankets fray 
and holes open wide 
to painful words 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 123 


Mother Troll

Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 
Spring/Summer 2001, Vol 3, No 1, 264 pages

Brownstein-Evans, Carol

Negotitating the Meaning of Motherhood: Women in Addiction and Recovery

Woodford, Donna C.

Book Reviews 
common equation of being able to "pay-for-it" with a license to "go-for-itn- 
a highly problematic class (and perhaps also race-) specific presumption. In 
fact, having sex with or accepting a "direct" donation from a male friend or 
acquaintance might be the only choice for some of us who could not afford to 
conceive through medical intervention. Why not "go against the lesbian party 
line" (39) and explore further the diversity ofchoices made by lesbians who want 
to become mothers and the socio-political ramifications of these choices? 
Moreover, the talk about "boy spermJ' and "girl sperm" leaves me wondering 
what it is that spurs our desire to be(come) mothers. The hope or desire of 
parents-to-be fo; a child ofone or the other sex is an important issue in any book 
that deals with pregnancy and becoming a parent. However, when we "design" 
a child should we not keep in mind the very questionable nature of traditional 
efforts at gender assignment and the normative expectations that such efforts 
serve to enforce? Shouldwe not strive to promote frameworks within which our 
children can reach beyond preconfigured, binary formulae of who they ought 
to be(come) and empower them to exceed those formulae? 
In spite short-comings, T h e  Ultimate Guide to  Pregnancy for Lesbians fills 
an obvious gap by providing queer-friendly and queer-specific information on 
how to overcome obstacles we often face when we contemplate, map out, and 
pursue the process of becoming lesbian, bisexual, andt'or single mothers. I 
highly recommend this resourceful and up-to-date compendium of "tips and 
techniques," alongside other wholistic guides to women's bodiedhealth and in 
lieu of the more traditional volumes that continue to refuse us a place in the 
realm of mothering/motherhood. 
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon 
England 
Mary Dockray-Miller 
New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Donna C. Woodford 
"Motherhood is becoming respectable, finally, in feminist circles," notes Mary 
Dockray-Miller at the beginning ofMotberboodandMotbering in Anglo-Saxon 
England (1). Nevertheless, she notes that this respectability has been a long 
time in coming: "For years [motherhood] was something to be ignored, 
embarrassed about, or evaded as feminists defined themselves as daughters 
rather than as mothers" (1). In academia, motherhood often has been viewed 
as a trivial subject, not worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Dockray-Miller's 
236 1 Volume 3, Number l 
Book Reviews 
new book, however, clearly demonstrates that motherhood can be a respectable 
topic for feminist scholarship. 
Dockray-Miller notes that after becoming a mother herself she began to 
wonder about the mothers of Anglo-Saxon England. She began to look for 
Anglo-Saxon mothers and discovered that they were difficult to find, since 
women's names and women's roles were often left out of the patrilineal histories 
and genealogies ofthe period. Nevertheless, using the ideas ofthree postmodern 
theorists, Judith Butler, Sara Ruddick, and Luce Irigaray, Dockray-Miller 
successfully uncovers and examines the mothers in Anglo-Saxon texts. From 
Butler she borrows the concept ofgender performance and expands it to include 
the idea of "maternal performance." This would include the performance of 
what Ruddick has defined as the maternal workof" protection, nurturance, and 
training of children" (2). Finally, from Irigaray she borrows the concept of 
maternal genealogy, or a genealogy in which the mother-daughter bond is 
preserved rather than severed for the sake of a patrilineal genealogy that "serves 
to reinscribe male domination ofwomen and male use of female reproductive 
capacity" (6) .  Using these theories as a lens, Dockray-Miller can view, and make 
visible to her readers, the previously invisible mothers of Anglo-Saxon Eng- 
land. 
In  her second chapter, Dockray-Miller examines the maternal genealogies 
ofthe religious women of seventh- and eighth-century England. She notes that 
nearly all of the founders of royal abbesses of this time period were related to 
one another, and she observes a repeated pattern in which a royal widow founds 
a monastery and then passes on her abbacy to a close female relative. This 
practice allowed both for a maternal genealogy, which stands in contrast to the 
patrilineal practice of fathers passing their dynasties on to sons, and for 
maternal performance, since the abbesses were spiritual mothers to the women 
in the monastery. 
In her third chapter, Dockray-Miller looks at the genealogy ofEdelflaed, 
Lady of the Mercians, but she looks not at the frequently examined male side 
of her family, but rather at the often neglected maternal side. Dockray-Miller 
notes that iEdeMaed was influenced by four generations of women who pro- 
tected, nurtured, and educated their children, and that this maternal genealogy 
is as important to understandingiEdelfled's rule as is her status as the daughter 
ofAlfred the Great and the sister of Edward the Elder. She thus places her "in 
a vibrant female community that has been overlooked by scholars who 
continually place her as an anomalous female isolated in a patriarchal commu- 
nity of her father, husband, and brother" (75). 
Finally, Dockray-Miller turns from history to literature and examines the 
mothers in BeowuF In this chapter, Dockray-Miller comes to the intriguing 
conclusion that the mothers in the poem do not want their sons to succeed to 
the throne, even though succession is the goal of fathers and ofthe "heroic coden 
that governs the poem. Because the throne was a dangerous site, the desire for 
royal succession would be counterproductive for a woman concerned with the 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 237 
Book Reviews 
maternal work of protecting her child. The mothers of the poem thus tend to 
"perform maternal work in the face of the heroic code," though with varying 
degrees of success (77). 
Dockray-Miller's book is an impressive study of the previously overlooked 
roles of mothers and other "maternal performers" in Anglo-Saxon England. 
Her book gives us a useful, new understanding of the time period, and it serves 
as further proof that motherhood is a respectable and useful area for academic 
exploration. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the 
study of Anglo-Saxon England or the study of motherhood in history and 
literature. 
This Giving Birth: 
Pregnancy and Childbirth in American Women's 
Writing 
Julie Tharp and Susan MacCallum-Whitcomb, eds. 
Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Nancy Lewis Tuten 
In their introduction to this collection, the editors observe that since "the baby 
boom generation has come of age in America, mothers are suddenly back in 
Vogue" and in Time, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal, too. They 
might well have added a host of academic journals to their list, for the 
proliferation ofscholarly articles on the subject ofparenting, and mothering in 
particular is noteworthy. One might ask, then, what this anthology hopes to 
add to the flourishing canon of mother-studies given credence in the 1980s by 
Adrienne Rich, Elaine Showalter, Mary O'Brien, Barbara Katz Rothman, and 
others, fleshed out over the past ten years by such scholars as Tess Coslett, 
Patricia Hill Collins, and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky? 
I wish this text had been available six years ago when I taught an honours 
section of freshman composition centred on the theme of mothers and 
daughters or more recently when I taught a senior honors seminar entitled 
"Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Mother." While literature was only one 
component of both courses, from the essays in This Giving Birth my students 
could have learned much more than literary analysis. They would have learned 
feminist history in the essay "Claiming Our Birth-Write: The Poetry of 
American Mothers" as MacCallum-Whitcomb traces the "legitimacy of the 
maternal voice" in the work of poets like Anne Bradstreet, Sharon Olds, and 
Mina Loy. The essay makes clear the formidable taskofbeing awoman writing 
poetry in a tradition steeped in the patriarchal injunctions of Emerson and 
Whitman. Gail Lippincott adds to the enormous body of work on Kate 
238 1 Volume 3, Number 1 


Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England