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

Editorial Masthead

Dunlop, Rishma

Rishma Dunlop 
Copper Moon 
Erratum Note: 
In Arm Journal Vol.3:1, an error was made in the reference to the name ofMathew 
Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard. A corrected version of the poem is reprinted in this 
issue. 
For Matthew Shepard (1 976-1 998) 
and for his mother andfather, Judy and Dennis Shepard 
i 
Child 
of our time, our times have robbed your cradle. 
Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken. 
Eavan Boland, "Child of Our Time" 
In the wake of a thousand years, 
your body a scarecrow 
battered silhouette against the starlight 
of a grave sky 
death arrives in a pick-up truck 
steals your shoes and $20 for coke and cigarettes 
wraps your wallet in a dirty diaper 
in a garbage pail 
for this and for love 
you are lashed to your crucifix 
your blood a bitter stain 
on the place that cradled you 
your face 
a scarlet mask 
but for the clean white tracks 
of your tears 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 149 
Risbma Dunlop 
and the air around us is a knife 
and the taste of death is like rust 
in our mouths 
and a hundred years closes 
a savage end to your journey 
What hope for a new century 
unless your brief shining will be 
an ecclesiastes 
unless in this broken place 
some aurora of promise is born 
unless your tears cleanse 
the skin of the earth 
unless our children, 
born of this time and the next 
learn from your severed wings 
and fly 
follow you out of this geography 
this darkest heart 
I imagine you there 
in the primal glow 
of a copper moon 
the earth curving its shadow 
across the lunar surface 
There will be a season for you 
when the trees and air and sky are singing 
and light will begin in the roses opening, 
in the apples falling from trees 
and there will be a time for you 
when the crows will disappear 
mourning doves will vanish, 
when faith will rise up 
with the songbirds of dawn 
May your breath be resurrected 
by the human cantos of mercy. 
May you dance beyond these years, 
your heart breaking loose 
in cathedrals of winds. 
150 I Volume 3, Number 2 
Copper Moon 
May this new century 
hold you, 
tender as a fontanel. 
You, Mr. McKinney, with your friend Mr. Henderson, killed my son.. .. 
You left him out there by himself, but he wasn't alone.. . he had the 
beautiful night sky with the same stars and moon that we used to look at 
through a telescope. Then he had the daylight and the sun to shine on him one 
more time-one more cool, wonderful day in Wyoming. His last day in 
Wyoming. And through it all he was breathing in for the last time the smell of 
sagebrush and the scent of pine trees from the snowy range. He  heard the 
wind-the ever-present Wyoming wind-for the last time. 
Dennis Shepard's statements to the court, November 4, 1999 
In the wake of a thousand years 
I drift back on the bent neck of time 
to the infant clasp of my firstborn 
nursing her on an autumn night 
her eyes reflecting 
the milky net of stars 
the earth curves its shadow 
across the lunar surface 
a copper moon glows over the foothills 
and in this primal light 
I give her to the tidal pulls of sleep and dreams, 
my hand cupped beneath her heart 
I remember her flight 
through my cave of bones 
her life spreading open 
the beginning of music and light 
an aperture of hope 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 151 
Rishma Dunlop 
in the folds of clean white linen 
my child so new 
all around her lightens and rises 
claims me 
the distillation of her breath 
a universe, 
an infinite refrain that enters me 
Baby boy 
If anything stood out, it was the fragileness of Shepard 
Fireside Lounge employees cited by Prosecutor Cal Rerucha 
Outside your funeral at the Redemption Chapel 
Reverend Phelps marches 
with his cronies from Kansas 
their signs God Hates Fags 
a full-color image of you says 
Matthew in Hell 
and it is a time to mourn 
and a time to weep 
a time to remember your father 
teaching you songs of childhood 
Frkre Jacques, 
Row, Row, Row Your Boat 
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star 
how I wonder what you are 
up above the world so high 
like a diamond in the sky 
the hatemongers at the temple 
are surrounded 
a parade of people dressed as "Angels of PeaceJ' 
white angels for you 
seven feet high with eight foot wingspans 
and the crowd cheers them on 
I remember 
that October night 
152 ( Volume 3, Number 2 
Copper Moon 
at the Fireside Lounge, 
how death courted you 
beer bottle and pool cue in hand 
discussing your politics 
wrapping the syllables 
of a serpent's coil 
around your open heart 
your smile shining 
like your patent leather shoes 
this was someone's child 
Melissa Ethridge, "Scarecrow" 
and I remember 
another mother's voice 
in a Laramie, Wyoming courtroom 
claiming mercy for the murderers of her firstborn 
Matthew stood for something 
mercy for those who could not show mercy 
and a father speaks to his son's killers: 
I give you life in the memory 
of one who no longer lives. 
May you have a long life, 
and may you thank Matthew 
every day for it. 
and I want the sanctity of scriptures 
to conjure spells upon my tongue 
to pray that this season too shall pass 
as if the words might chant 
a new scene into being 
perhaps those farm fields 
filled with wildflowers 
the choirs of weeping 
hushed in the opiate of poppies 
but I see your pistol-whipped body 
blood seeping into a nation 
I remember the officer who cut you free 
speaking of the braces on your teeth, 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 153 
Rishma Dunlop 
your school ID in the dust 
she whispers to you in the ambulance 
words ofcomfort, Baby boy 
and the sound of mothers and fathers 
through endless years 
is a wailing of sirens in my ear 
and I wonder, as I touch 
the memory of my sleeping child 
her tender fontanel, 
as I watch her now 
running fleet-footed 
through corridors of time, 
my anthem, my bloodline calling, 
I wonder, if I could cast away stones, 
if I could be so merciful 
to those who would crush her 
I wonder, if this new century 
will hold her, 
will her mother's faith in 
memory's insistence, 
be enough 
for a millennium of mercy 


English

Copper Moon

Beauchamp, Anna

Book Reviews 
A Child on Her Mind: 
The Experience of Becoming a Mother 
Vangie Bergum 
Westport, CT.: Bergin and Garvey, 1997 
Reviewed by Anna Beauchamp 
Vangie Bergum first coined the phrase "achild on her mind" to describe the core 
experience of motherhood in her earlier work, Woman to Mofher:A Transfor- 
mation (1989), forwhich she interviewed agroup ofmiddle-class women before 
and after the birth of their first child, and analyzed the patterns in their 
experiences of transformation into motherhood. She examined the decision to 
have a child, the experience of the child's presence during pregnancy, the 
experience of labour, breastfeeding, and the transformative sense of responsi- 
bility that comes from living with an infant. She also included a section on 
various approaches to childbirth knowledge and their effects on women's 
transformation into motherhood. Woman t o  Mother was limited in scope, 
however, by the small number ofwomen Bergum interviewed (only six) and by 
the fact that they represented a rather homogeneous group. 
InA Childon HerMind, Bergum builds on her earlier research and extends 
her examination of motherhood experiences to include mothers from a wide 
range of socioeconomic backgrounds, birth mothers who place their children 
for adoption, adoptive mothers, teen mothers, and mothers who choose 
abortion. While much of the material covered in the first two chapters comes 
directly from her earlier book, the pairing ofher original research with the new 
material makes A Child on Her Mind a much more comprehensive look at the 
psychological impact of the experience of motherhood. Bergum's central 
question throughout the book is "What is the experience of becoming a 
mother?" (3). In addressing this question, Bergum has both broadened her 
scope and deepened her analysis. 
Bergum's discussion of birth and adoptive mothers raises challenging 
questions regarding just how we define a "mother." Pointedly naming this 
chapter "Adoption's Two Mothers," Bergum presents a compelling case that 
224 1 Volume 3, Number 1 
there are deeply felt experiences of transformative motherhood both in choos- 
ing to relinquish a child for adoption and in making the commitment to raise 
an adopted child. Another chapter focusing on teen motherhood explores the 
effects of new motherhood on young women who are still in transition to 
adulthood. Bergum displays profound respect for the experiences of each and 
every mother she interviews. 
Bergum shines brightest in her final chapter, "The Way of the Mother." 
Here she does an artful job of drawing out the commonalities in the varied 
- 
experiences of motherhood described by the diverse group ofwomen she has 
interviewed, and she makes an eloquent case for motherhood as the basis of a 
morality of responsibility: 
I suggest that the experience ofwomen during pregnancy, birth, and 
nurturance demonstrates how the woman turns toward the child, and 
how, in this turning to the child (as Other), she comes to a renewed 
sense of herself (the Self). In this moral turn the woman asks the 
questions, 'Who am I?" and 'What should I do now?" Using repro- 
ductive choices as an example, I propose that moral questions and our 
responses to them stem from a relational root-the commitment that 
we have toward each other.. . . The stories of mothering are sources of 
moral knowledge. (134) 
The Rhetoric of Midwifery: 
Gender, Knowledge, and Power 
Mary M. Lay 
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Melissa Miller Chastain 
A well-researched, articulate contribution to the field of midwifery and 
rhetoric, this book analyses the recent Minnesota hearings on midwifery 
licensing and regulation. A professor at the University of Minnesota, Lay 
affirms that this book provides a "rare opportunity to study the medical and 
midwifery practices in conflict; the use of discourse to maintain professional 
jurisdictions; the exclusive claim to scientific knowledge and discourse by 
dominant professions; and the cultural status granted to women's experience 
and knowledge of their bodies" (ix). Written in an approachable style, The 
Rhetoric ofMidwfe y not only offers an understanding of "how the hegemonic 
medical profession maintains its jurisdiction claims and how midwifery prac- 
tice currently responds to those claims, but also insight into the role that 
discourse or language plays throughout these interactions" (X). 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 225 


A Child on Her Mind: The Experience of Becoming a Mother

Hammond, Merryl

Merryl Hammond 
Little Life, Lost Life 
I'm 14 weeks pregnant 
bleeding heavily 
strong contractions every 2-3 minutes. 
'We call them cramps" he said. 
Call them what you like, d o c  
I am a mother 
W e  know contractions when we feel them. 
A full, warm gush. 
I look down and see you among the clots: 
You are beautiful. 
A glistening bean-shape 
of unknown, unknowable potential 
on your rich placental bed. 
Mother-of-pearl. 
Pearl-of-mother 
. . . and father. 
Little, little life. 
Lost life. 
Back home 
I wash away the last traces of 
your life-blood 
death-blood. 
Tears and blood flow down the drain together 
Gone. 
Gone. 
Where from, all this pain, all these tears? 
I hardly had time to acknowledge 
your precious presence in me. 
Journal of the Association for Rerearch on Mothering 1 143 


Little Life, Lost Life

Schissel, Wendy

Book Reviews 
Lost Fathers: 
The Politics of Fatherlessness in America 
Cynthia R. Daniels, ed. 
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998 
Reviewed by Wendy Schissel 
Cynthia Daniels's contributors respond to a significant demographic fact: more 
than 50% of American children will live without their fathers at some point in 
their lives. Some of the authors of L o s t  Fathers  see in this statistic a rationale 
for family dysfunction and youth criminogenesis. Some see it as a measure of 
the new plurality of families. Some authors point out the gender, race, class, or 
biodeterminist bias of reading fatherlessness as a negative. Still others, 
including Daniels, see the rhetoric of fatherlessness as a way to move public 
focus away from the hardships of single motherhood and the feminization of 
poverty back to a masculinist focus. 
Among the good, the bad, and the ugly politics of this collection many 
things become clear. The good may be found in Robert L. Griswold's astute 
"The History and Politics ofFatherlessness" which advocates a demythologizing 
of an ideologically coherent fatherhood past. Juxtaposed against Griswold's 
thoughtful history is David Popenoe's bad sociology. In "Life Without Father," 
rife with the politics of hate directed against children but masquerading as 
advocacy for children, Popenoe cites fatherlessness as the "major force" behind 
juvenile crime and teen pregnancy. Problems abound in this paper from its 
sensationalized language to its poor statistics. Teenage boys of single mothers 
are not "notoriouslyprone to trouble" (38) as the good sociology ofMike Males 
(not cited) proves. Contrary to what Popenoe would have readers believe from 
the "evidence" and "recent research" he never cites, juvenile violent crime in the 
U.S. is not increasing. 
The ugliest suggestion in the entire collection is that marriage and 
fatherhood are perceived in our society to be the only ways to tame the savage 
beast that is male. This powerful, bioevolutionary assumption is alive and well 
in the heterosexist rhetoric of "family values." Even uglier is the reality of 
systemic racism in those "values." In the best essay of the collection, "The 
Absent Black Father," Dorothy Roberts explains that "if missing fathers are 
perceived as the cause of society's ills, it is largely because Black culture is 
considered the benchmark of social degeneracy and female-headed households 
are the emblem ofculture. I t  is the absent Black father who epitomizes the male 
component of family breakdown and its deplorable repercussions" (46). I t  is 
poverty that causes so much fatherlessness in America, not degeneracy, racial 
or otherwise. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 187 
Book Reviews 
I t  appears that many of the debates over fatherlessness are just new ways 
of avoiding necessary structural changes, As the final, fine essay of the book 
"Fatherhood and Its Discontents: Men, Patriarchy, and Freedom" by Drucilla 
Cornell makes clear, we need public policy that acknowledges and supports the 
multiple family forms that respond to economic hardships and puts the focus 
where public policy should be: on children and their care. 
No Parent is an Island 
Paula Johanson, Illustrated by Julie Van Alstine 
Calgary, Alberta: Temeron Books Inc, 1995 
Reviewed by Farah M Shroff 
This collection of short stories is a fun and at times, touching look at the lives 
of the author's family. Paula Johanson writes about being the mother of twins 
in two very different parts of Canada: downtown Victoria, British Columbia 
and a rembte farm ndrth of Edmonton, Alberta. The book contains autobio- 
graphical stories that reflect upon Johanson's everyday experiences of moth- 
ering. 
Many of the stories are humorous. Once, Johanson finds her children 
covered in Vaseline. They had tried to crawl away but had covered themselves 
and the floor in Vaseline and could not make a get-away. She describes many 
other such mischievous moments and has a page called "My Christmas Wish 
List" that includes business cards that read, "Don't tell me I'm a good parent- 
offer to BABYSIT." Most new mothers would benefit from a stackofJohanson's 
business cards. 
Johanson's chapter on the birth of her children echoes much of the 
literature on hospital birth: traumatic, overly controlled by uncaring obstetri- 
cians, unnecessarily invasive. Having her partner and a friend with her during 
the intense and painful delivery makes an enormous difference. Nevertheless, 
shortly following the birth of her babies, she experiences severe depression 
which she attributes in part to insensitive hpspital care. She also describes her 
experience as a new mother as being in "splendid isolation," meaning that for 
weeks in a row she would speak to only three adults. Many ofher friends ignore 
her and others speak patronizingly to her. She describes being treated as 
someone with a very low I Q  In Johanson's case, these forms of mother- 
mistreatment result in clinically diagnosable mental health concerns, for which 
she seeks therapy over the course of one year. 
For the first few years of her chilren's lives, Johanson is a stay-at home 
188 1 Volume 3, Number 2 


Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America

Zeck, Jeanne-Marie

Book Review3 
narratives of particular slaves and from plantation records she concludes that 
transfer of young women from the house to the field occurred in order to 
encourage slave marriage and childbearing (187). Slaves and the condition of 
slavery are also made accessible through photographs and illustrations and 
endnotes serve as supplement and reference. The bookdoes not, however, have 
a bibliography and the index is spotty; FrederickDouglass, for example, appears 
in the text but not in the index. 
The strength of Born in Bondage lies in Schwartz's articulation of slavery 
from the contrasting perspective of the slaves and their owners. For example 
she juxtaposes the slave community's view of a baby as the continuation of a 
people (47) and the slaveowner's view of the child as commodity. Schwartz 
delineates the difficulties encountered by slave families who struggled to forge 
and maintain family relationships in the face of owners who "discounted the 
desire of slaves for separate housing for their families and appropriated the slave 
mother's time for their own use because they recognized no need for slaves to 
maintain a separate family identity" (74). The problems of maintaining 
subjectivity in the face of slavery form an undercurrent throughout the text, and 
Schwartz carefully articulates the especial problems of raising children to be 
aware of themselves as individuals under the restrains of slavery. She makes 
clear the value of community and family in raising children to know what it 
meant to be a slave, but also what it meant "to be a man or a woman, a husband 
or a wife, a parent or a child" (211). 
Women of the Far Right: 
The Mothers' Movement and World War II 
Glen Jeansonne 
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996 
Reviewed by Jeanne-Marie Zeck 
Glen Jeansonne has written an important book documenting the leaders and 
ideologies of mothers' organizations in the United States during World War 
11. In his book, Jeansonne dispels a number ofmyths about bigots. They are not, 
he claims, the victims of ignorance or economic deprivation; bigots are 
individuals whose anxieties and insecurities are "obsessive and unrealistic." To  
justify their fears, they find scapegoats and imagine conspiracies. No amount 
of education or financial securitywill transform bigots into fair-minded people, 
Jeansonne insists. 
The Mothers' Movement began in 1939 in California just after Germany 
invaded Poland and war was declared. Eventually the movement flourished on 
196 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Book Reviews 
both coasts and in the Midwest. Most members of these groups were upper- 
middle-class conservative white women adhering to patriarchal definitions of 
womanhood and motherhood. Most of them were not, Jeansonne states, 
feminists. Priding themselves on their roles as protectors of their sons, they 
were fervently anti-war. Further rationale of many groups was that FDR was 
surrounding himselfwith Jews who were linked to the Soviet Union. Members 
of the Mothers' Movement felt threatened by The New Deal which, they 
believed, jeopardized the class system and white supremacy. The women 
thought that England and the U.S.S.R. were headed for defeat. Consequently, 
they wanted the U.S. to support Germany. They viewed Hitler as a good 
Christian protecting a truly Christian nation. They agreed that Jews were the 
cause of many economic and social problems and, like Hitler, they considered 
extermination an acceptable solution. 
Jeansonne describes the methods the mothers' organizations used in 
dispensing their philosophies: they organized rallies and marches, gave radio 
broadcasts, created newspapers, wrote ~amphlets and books, and made speeches 
before Congress and the Senate. Although ultimately members of the Mothers' 
Movement were not as influential as they hoped to be, "the mothers helped 
create the conditions that led to McCarthylsm and thegovernment suppression 
of suspected internal enemies," Jeansonne asserts. 
Jeansonne's is a well-organized, well-documented study. In the early 
chapters, the author establishes the context for the women he discussed and 
their beliefs. In the body of the book, he describes a number of specific 
organizations such as the Los Angeles-based National Legion of Mothers of 
America. He also gives in-depth biographical information for a number of the 
leaders. Jeansonne devotes achapter to the mass sedition trialpoweredby FDR, 
another chapter to the effects of the Mothers' Movements, and concludes with 
an epilogue in which he states, "Tolerance is an attitude that evolves over a 
lifetime, an evolution that depends greatly on one's sense of security and on 
reinforcement from families, friends, peers and religious institutions". 
This book may help readers demythologize women as loving nurturers. If 
we are tempted to lionize women, this bookwill challenge our assumptions. As 
Jeansonne states, the Mothers' Movement "raises questions about isolationism, 
gender and morality, and women's history . .. 1; is a disturbing tale, which 
nevertheless must be told ifwe are to be honest about our history." 
This book would be an excellent resource in classes on women's studies, 
World War 11, isolationism, racism, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish 
Studies. I t  is also an excellent resource for anyone concerned about issues of 
peace and justice. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 197 


Women of the Far Right: The Mothers' Movement and World War II

Shroff, Farah M.

Book Reviews 
I t  appears that many of the debates over fatherlessness are just new ways 
of avoiding necessary structural changes, As the final, fine essay of the book 
"Fatherhood and Its Discontents: Men, Patriarchy, and Freedom" by Drucilla 
Cornell makes clear, we need public policy that acknowledges and supports the 
multiple family forms that respond to economic hardships and puts the focus 
where public policy should be: on children and their care. 
No Parent is an Island 
Paula Johanson, Illustrated by Julie Van Alstine 
Calgary, Alberta: Temeron Books Inc, 1995 
Reviewed by Farah M Shroff 
This collection of short stories is a fun and at times, touching look at the lives 
of the author's family. Paula Johanson writes about being the mother of twins 
in two very different parts of Canada: downtown Victoria, British Columbia 
and a rembte farm ndrth of Edmonton, Alberta. The book contains autobio- 
graphical stories that reflect upon Johanson's everyday experiences of moth- 
ering. 
Many of the stories are humorous. Once, Johanson finds her children 
covered in Vaseline. They had tried to crawl away but had covered themselves 
and the floor in Vaseline and could not make a get-away. She describes many 
other such mischievous moments and has a page called "My Christmas Wish 
List" that includes business cards that read, "Don't tell me I'm a good parent- 
offer to BABYSIT." Most new mothers would benefit from a stackofJohanson's 
business cards. 
Johanson's chapter on the birth of her children echoes much of the 
literature on hospital birth: traumatic, overly controlled by uncaring obstetri- 
cians, unnecessarily invasive. Having her partner and a friend with her during 
the intense and painful delivery makes an enormous difference. Nevertheless, 
shortly following the birth of her babies, she experiences severe depression 
which she attributes in part to insensitive hpspital care. She also describes her 
experience as a new mother as being in "splendid isolation," meaning that for 
weeks in a row she would speak to only three adults. Many ofher friends ignore 
her and others speak patronizingly to her. She describes being treated as 
someone with a very low I Q  In Johanson's case, these forms of mother- 
mistreatment result in clinically diagnosable mental health concerns, for which 
she seeks therapy over the course of one year. 
For the first few years of her chilren's lives, Johanson is a stay-at home 
188 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Book Reviews 
parent and she writes about being misunderstood. Friends could not compre- 
hend how a dynamic professional could have a strange new focus- "babbling all 
day and hanging around parks." She found a support group of other mothers 
in which she was able to find her voice and share her concerns and joys. One 
of the biggest topics of discussion was about paid labour. 
Johanson soon starts writing about her experiences as a parent and begins 
to sell her stories. She leads writing workshops and slowly moves herself back 
into the paid workforce. Her children then move into daycare. 
Johanson's partner, especially his sense of humor, is a constant feature of 
her stories, from the time of their separation to their reunion, although the 
status of their relationship is never made clear. Most feminists will appreciate 
the story of her partner's vasectomy, as he acts on his belief that birth control 
is not just a woman's concern. In fact, Johanson's partner writes the last story 
in the book "Bernie Gets the Last Word." 
Canadian Families: 
Diversity, Conflict and Change, Second Edition 
Nancy Mandell and Ann Duffy, eds. 
Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Company Canada, 2000 
Reviewed by Lorna A. Turnbull 
This collection of articles provides a thorough, critical assessment of the 
situation of families in Canada today. It  will provide an excellent classroom 
resource for courses across a range of disciplines. Organized in three parts, the 
book traces the history of family diversity, current family situations, and future 
challenges faced by families in our ever-changing world. 
The first part of the book, "Families in Historical and Social Context," 
challenges the myth of the husbandhreadwinner and wifehomemaker model 
of the family. Chapter One demonstrates how the traditional family is a 
historical anomaly of the post Second World War period and how diversity is, 
in fact, the norm. The authors note the significant number of single parent 
families that existed historically because of the impact of death and desertion. 
They also note the impact of classism in defining family norms, showing how, 
among poorer and non-white families, both husband and wife were commonly 
employed outside of the home. Chapter Two includes an examination of the 
role of the child in the parent-child relationship, recognizing that contrary to 
traditional theories of socialization, children have an impact upon their parents 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 189 


No Parent is an Island

Norman, Renee

Renee Norman 
Caught! 
hook in a trout's mouth 
she calls excited 
wants to let the creature loose 
the cruel mangle of pin 
an eagle swoops down 
to grab 
she so willing to relinquish 
the eagle prepares her 
for the futility of tenderness 
but the trout 
scales a glint of silver 
struggling for air in light 
strained through thick trees 
blood staining the pocket 
of her nylon jacket 
(it holds a penny leaking red) 
the trout tutors her 
in the luxury of mercy 
130 1 Volume 3, Number 2 


Caught

Sempruch, Justyna

Justyna Sempruch 
voicing the 
invisiblity of silence 
a narrative of 
postpartum depression 
not me somebody else should be writing what i have to say not me because there is no 
me in this stoy i have been losing myself in pregnancy in birth and then in 
something that i have underestimated until it broke me down the postpartum 
i thought that it would no longer be possible to say it i have lost myself because 
previously i must have thought that there was me before i became pregnant 
postpartum post motherhood equals separation from the warmth of the 
whole body missing the other body motherhood means concentrating on what 
has been left leftovers pain and lack my bones are aching muscles hurt eyes are red 
left side of my face is not moving my left eye won't close my body is turning into the 
body of a mother thinner and thinner there was a mother in me that was not 
mother and idshe wanted to lose weight but instead the weight was losing her 
milkwas dropping like tears spilling all over andthe baby is beautifula tiny most 
amazingjewel i have ever imagined i have to be carefulsomebody could steal itfiom 
me but it is not mine somehow it had become autonomous growing separately 
from her body the body of mother sleeping and healthy iam not healthy my body 
is weak my mindrefuses to restandenjoy maybe tomorrow i won'tbe ableto walkthey 
willhave toput me into a wheelchair and i won't be able to stand it there was fear 
growing inside me overwhelming fear of dying i imagined and they believed it 
was true 
i did not want to believe that it was a depression what is a depression a sort 
of a headache that puts you into sleep i wish i had a depression but no i have 
multiple sclerosis pregnancy the last month bell's palsy he said i am sorry it will 
take you a couple ofweeks to recover not quite uncommon three percent of my 
patients had it unfortunatelywe don't know much about it can be related to the 
hormonal changes in your body and then the little it was there much earlier than 
i thought maybe i can not bear it any longer maybe it ir trying to hek the little it is 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 155 
Justyna Sempruch 
ty ing to he& me it is coming out ofme slowly the whole night long while i was 
pushing the eye on the paralyzed side of my face wanted to come out like the 
baby my husband stood beside me horrified and fascinated he was pushing my 
eye back inside and watching the baby coming out out out my body was a 
hysterical spectacle of the abject on the outside inside there was just pain terrible 
and important a very exclusive kind ofpain i saw the little it in the morning and 
i was very calm the mother already loved it so much and i wanted to love it 
i have been recovering well but i had not seen it i had not seen my previous 
body i was in a different shape only halfof the face was mine wretched in front 
of the mirror i promised myself if i could have my smile back if i could i would 
never again complain but only halfofmy smile is there no matter how hard i smile 
having my face back means happiness i demandjom l$ right now with the most 
amazing boy sleeping in the transparent tube beside me all bundled up in white and 
cream and a little bit of blue a tiny creature in a terrarium that i can watchpom a 
safe distance but also touch i f i  wish 
we were alone in vancouver a strange transient city with people who 
listened but who never talked suspended between sadness and joy amazement 
and nostalgia wariness and pride up and down every hour different our place in 
there became claustrophobic my body refused to heal is it me who takes care of 
my son or is it him who takes care of meboth afraid and curious we have been taking 
care of each other 
no wedo not belong here it isa foreign territo ytoo much water andthose wooden 
constructions all over and my water did not break the clouds and the moisture makes 
me believe that the city is there for the plants the plants aregrowing all over the place 
living on the rain and living on people living on the mother in me living on my 
husband and the little it the plants are huge and live by absorbing the water that is 
there for them exclusively plants are important 
but not my body my body separatedjom me andi demandexplanation you have 
a post-partum depression it is obvious i could prescribe you some anti- 
depressants but you have to stop breast-feeding no i had to go away there were 
many doctors in vancouver but they could not speak there were plants in their 
offices and drapes took away all the light i am so ajaidto breathe it is the mother 
in me who breathes she also watches the baby breathe and then she holds it tight my 
hands are aching in the night when ifeed the baby andfeel my breasts swollen and 
disfigured i start to hate my husband he woke up with me and slept nevertheless 
he was trying to help and he did not he read a newspaper i decided to hate him 
the same kind of hate i developed for the city somewhere else i would be able to 
love him again now i love the baby it never hurts it is easy all that was hurting me 
was because of me the weakness the loneliness the mother the unprepared 
condition of motherhood my husband was lonely too but at least he had his 
body all the time the body was his 
go back to europe back home where is that home that was no longer ours but 
perhaps i could occupy myselfwith something else refocus my mind on making 
it ours only that i must know what is happening to me to my body too many small 
156 1 Volume 3, Number 1 
voicing the invisibility of silence 
pains indicators of a disaster phone calls to nurses inquires questions uncer- 
tainty hysteria and then that general practitioner in whistler exceptionally good 
they said hardly ever mistaken in his diagnoses consulted in serious matters only 
next day we drove to whistler why is there no space forjoy in me why is the whole 
body occupiedby fear that i have to mask eve y day i try i try to enjoy restaurants hot 
tubs wine affections and above all i try to enjoy my child but then my child is being 
admiredalmost by eve ybody especially women women who also immediately and 
wordless commented on my body the same insane disordered body how could 
this body make agood impression ifany ofthem looked into my eyes theywould 
have noticed but no they would have not they were watching the mother in me 
moving towards the child if i could tell them that i was so afraid it would never 
be back the body they thought they saw preoccupied with pain counting every 
single one hoping that perhaps they come onlywhen i think they would and the 
mother pretended the pleasure ofbeing while i speculated upon death each time 
i felt pleasure my brain felt the emptiness i imagined must have been there when 
you cannot feel the pleasure the lack ofpleasure is imagined much stronger than real 
allover me falling into sleep with a headache is like falling into death but each time 
i heard my child crying i was back in life the body of mother was working well 
it woke up regularly sometimes even before the baby it produced milk 
successfully and fed the baby it never collapsed it never stopped giving 
maybe because it was not afraid of giving it was me who was afraid when 
the doctor finally examined my body i had all the answers ready i said all he 
wanted to know i won't teN him anything he seems he made up his mind he knows 
i knew too but i was afraid to know well i think you have multiple sclerosis- 
fallingdown fallingdown down deep deep how deep deep down falling please calm 
down obviously you don't know much about multiple sclerosis fallingdown deep 
down we have to test you to be sure MRI is most accurate but there is a waiting - 
list three to fourweeks no no waitingicannotwait ihave to know there is a private 
center theywill test youwithin 48 hours i could call them right now it tookthem 
4 days and it was expensive but i had to stop falling down the reason whatever 
it was i needed my body to live with the money everything was quicker but it 
did not change much i was awaiting my sentence i actually wanted to have MS 
in order to finalize the pain and to start the treatment 
i saw neurologist only after the MRI results were available we sat there my 
husband and me in front ofyet another person waiting for the confirmation of 
the diagnosis you know the results don't you no I don't there are no traces of 
MS in your brain the results are negative i did not believe i was suspicious maybe 
these are not my results why thepain what then is thepain about for the next half 
a year of my life i had MS i breathed MS lived MS and i was becoming a mother 
i was joining the mother healing the split within and ithought i wouldnot be able 
to say it i thought writing was like ordering thoughts thoughts that i have been 
collecting for too long to remember their clues but writing about depression is not 
ordering and collecting rather it is a suspension of disorder a moment frozen in 
chaos grasped and left untouched writing about depression writing with a 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 157 
desperate hope of breaking through the invisibility of silence 
Author ' s  af terword 
I gave birth to Julian in Vancouver on the 28 of February 1999, two weeks 
before the due date and one week before the oral exam for my PhD candidacy 
examinations. At the day of submitting my last exam paper I was diagnosed 
with Bell's palsy, a partial paralysis of the face, possibly due to hormonal 
changes. Thus, the growing sensation of horror that I had repeatedly experi- 
enced in the last trimester of my pregnancy reached its climax. I was torn 
between hystericaldespair and avague desire for the baby. But the next few days 
changed everything. There were suddenly three ofus, Sebastian, Julian and me. 
I felt happy, my face soon recovered and apparently all was well. Two months 
past, I started to observe strange weaknesses in my body; I could no longer 
concentrate on reading and watched too many "wrong" movies, especially "Go 
Now," mistakenlyrecommended as a comedy but actually showing a tragic life- 
story of multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, it ended with an extra commercial 
with a young mother who cannot pick up her crying baby from the floor. She's 
had it. Eve ybody can get it, you can get it, soplease contribute to the Canadian MS 
Society. The pains grew but I denied the thought of the depression because a 
depression could not make me feel so bad. 
158 1 Volume3, Number l 


voicing the invisibility of silence: a narrative of postpartum depression

Harde, Roxanne

Book Reviews 
As a reader involved with mothering in the community and the classroom, 
though not inside my home (yet), this collection enthralled me. Theoryhas met 
practice in a triumphant and hopefulway in this book. No reader will agree with 
or find resonance with each essay, but the wide range ofvoices balances out any 
inconsistencies. This book is a call to arms for anyone concerned with racial 
injustice, the future of our children, the practice of teaching as a political act, 
and/or the importance of mothering. Invigorating and intensely personal, it is 
a book I will read again, assign to students, and recommend to everyone who 
is involved with children. 
Born in Bondage: 
Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South 
Schwartz, Marie Jenkins. 
Cambridge: Hanrard University Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Roxanne Harde 
Previous examinations of parenting and growing up enslaved have tended to be 
either fictive, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), or 
autobiographical, such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the L$ of a Slave Girl 
(1861) and Frederick Douglass's autobiography (1845). Historian Marie 
Jenkins Schwartz's thoroughly researched Born in Bondage moves beyond 
Stowe's well-intentioned novel and the personal narratives of Jacobs and 
Douglas to present the experiences of the average parent and child under 
slavery. Schwartz counters the widely held view of paternalistic slave owners 
as men who determined the life and welfare of human property in this 
examination of "the experiences of a bound but resilient people as they learned 
to negotiate between acts of submission and selfhood, between the world of 
commodity and community, as they grew to adulthood" (18). She makes her 
readers aware of the individuality of each slave, individuality the practice of 
slavery attempted to remove. 
Schwartz argues her thesis through a chronological study that follows the 
life cycle of the enslaved from birth through youth to young adulthood and the 
formation of a family. While Schwartz draws heavily on archival material and 
the records of slaveholders, her chief sources are compilations of slave narra- 
tives, in particular the forty-one volume The American Slave: A Composite 
Autobiography, compiled by George P. Rawick and published through the 
1970s. She weaves her resources into a fluent narrative that makes immediate 
the concerns and personalities of the slaves she cites. For example, from the 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 195 
Book Review3 
narratives of particular slaves and from plantation records she concludes that 
transfer of young women from the house to the field occurred in order to 
encourage slave marriage and childbearing (187). Slaves and the condition of 
slavery are also made accessible through photographs and illustrations and 
endnotes serve as supplement and reference. The bookdoes not, however, have 
a bibliography and the index is spotty; FrederickDouglass, for example, appears 
in the text but not in the index. 
The strength of Born in Bondage lies in Schwartz's articulation of slavery 
from the contrasting perspective of the slaves and their owners. For example 
she juxtaposes the slave community's view of a baby as the continuation of a 
people (47) and the slaveowner's view of the child as commodity. Schwartz 
delineates the difficulties encountered by slave families who struggled to forge 
and maintain family relationships in the face of owners who "discounted the 
desire of slaves for separate housing for their families and appropriated the slave 
mother's time for their own use because they recognized no need for slaves to 
maintain a separate family identity" (74). The problems of maintaining 
subjectivity in the face of slavery form an undercurrent throughout the text, and 
Schwartz carefully articulates the especial problems of raising children to be 
aware of themselves as individuals under the restrains of slavery. She makes 
clear the value of community and family in raising children to know what it 
meant to be a slave, but also what it meant "to be a man or a woman, a husband 
or a wife, a parent or a child" (211). 
Women of the Far Right: 
The Mothers' Movement and World War II 
Glen Jeansonne 
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996 
Reviewed by Jeanne-Marie Zeck 
Glen Jeansonne has written an important book documenting the leaders and 
ideologies of mothers' organizations in the United States during World War 
11. In his book, Jeansonne dispels a number ofmyths about bigots. They are not, 
he claims, the victims of ignorance or economic deprivation; bigots are 
individuals whose anxieties and insecurities are "obsessive and unrealistic." To  
justify their fears, they find scapegoats and imagine conspiracies. No amount 
of education or financial securitywill transform bigots into fair-minded people, 
Jeansonne insists. 
The Mothers' Movement began in 1939 in California just after Germany 
invaded Poland and war was declared. Eventually the movement flourished on 
196 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
