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

MacDonnell, Judy

English

Facilitating Support for Expectant Lesbians in a Public Health Context: Encountering Resistance in the Research Process

Steele, Cassie Premo

Cassie Premo Steele 
Spring, again 
The buds are forming on the apple trees 
again, and we are coming to the blossom, 
to the anniversary of your conception. 
You are no guppy now, no longer swim 
in my blind sea but skim spring 
puddles with your own toes, 
tapping out the sounds of rain. 
I fear I have lost you already, the part 
of you that was a part of me, 
and this is what I'm mourning. 
I long again for summer, the heavy hard 
sweat of you, and then the fall, the 
pungent pickled weight of you, 
and then the winter, the fragrant freeze 
of your arrival. Not spring. 
Not the waiting, not the wanting, 
not the life without you in it, 
not desire coming from my lonely 
lovely self. In  spring we meet as 
separate singers, each a rhythm, each a 
part. The song we sing is my 
lament, your celebration, as it is 
for ever after: your happiness 
leaves a tiny worm that feeds 
upon the apple of my heart. 
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 1 215 


Spring, again

Wright, Joanna H.

Joanne H. Wright 
Unmasking Ourselves: 
Resisting the Martha Ste wart-ization 
of Motherhood 
A review essay of Susan Maushart, 
The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother 
Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't 
T o  see motherhood properly, I am convinced, is to see it heroically, 
which means making full acknowledgement of the pain, the dangers, 
and the risks and taking the full measure of the glory for its exquisite 
rewards. (Maushart, 1999: 105) 
When The Mask OfMotherhood(Maushart, 1999) went to press, the first Martha 
Stewart Baby magazine had yet to decorate the racks of grocery stores and Gap 
sales counters. Yet, in Martha Stewart Baby lies ample evidence of Susan 
Maushart's thesis about the mask of motherhood. Maushart is concerned with 
the incongruities between women's lived experiences of mothering and our 
cultural representations of that experience in the media, advertising, and in 
public and private discourse. As a magazine dedicated entirely to feeding, 
clothing, and decorating for babies, Martha Stewart Baby embodies a cultur- 
ally-dominant, but nonetheless troublesome image of motherhood. It  looks 
like a Baby Gap advertising supplement, containingcountless photos ofperfect 
designer children. We find in its pages instructions on such things as how to 
make an inchworm cake for your child's first birthday-a cake that would take 
any normal human being days to prepare and assemble. We see neat, tidy 
middle-class nurseries decorated to perfection with hand-sewn quilts and 
pumpkin-shaped pillows. More interesting, however, is what-or whom-we 
do not see: mothers themselves. Indeed, the magazine reveals almost no traces 
of the work of mothering at all. 
Although mothers are absent from the glossy photo spreads of Baby 
magazine, they are very much at its center. Indeed, the magazine is targeted at 
mothers and it is selling us a particular image ofwhat motherhood should look 
like. The invisibility of mothers is a sign that the work of mothering should be 
124 / Volume 3, Number 2 
neither seen nor heard. Martha Stewart Baby offers us a sanitized and idealized 
world of motherhood in which the reality of babies, the care they demand and 
the mess they make is confined to lighthearted quips in the small print. This 
is a world of consumption in which the solution to any "problem" about 
parenting can be found in the product information pages. With its photos of 
sleeping babies, its articles on the meaning of lullabies and the creation of 
memory quilts, Martha Stewart Baby also serves to sentimentalize and roman- 
ticize motherhood. W e  can hardly help being drawn into Martha Stewart's 
world because of its sheer beauty, but at the same time, it leaves most of us 
feeling inadequate. This kind of artificial beauty, this forced sentimentality, 
tends to inspire feelings of disappointment and guilt-disappointment that we 
don't have the time or inclination to make pumpkin-shaped pillows, and guilt 
that we can't make mothering look that easy or perfect. 
The fundamental disjuncture between Martha Stewart's mother-absent 
but perfect world and the lived experiences of mothering is exactly what 
Maushart (1999) wants to deconstruct. She argues that mothers themselves 
repress this disjuncture between illusion and reality behind the mask of 
motherhood, a term that Maushart borrows from Adrienne Rich. The mask of 
motherhood is of our own design; it conceals the ambivalence, the frustration, 
and the conflicted emotions that manywomen experience in mothering behind 
the fa~ade of the competent, cheerful and even serene mother. The problem is 
not just that we do not see ourselves reflected in the pages of Martha Stewart 
Baby, but that, in being bombarded with these wholly unrealistic images of 
motherhood, we internalize them and use them as the standard against which 
we judge our own performances. How many of us know that Martha Stewart's 
world is not our own, but continue nevertheless to flip longingly through the 
pages of her Baby magazine? 
Of course, the mask of motherhood takes many different forms, and 
Martha Stewart's magazine is only one of them. The mask of motherhood can 
also be found in the cultural discourses about pregnancy as an unequivocally 
joyful experience, about labour as something that can be "managed" with drugs 
or, if approached with the correct attitude and birth plan, done naturally. The 
mask of motherhood encourages us to accept the idea that motherhood is itself 
a manageable experience, that it is just another task to be juggled with others. 
W e  deal in the currency of "supermom" and the myth of achieving an easy 
balance between career and family but, as Maushart puts it, "getting the knack 
of combining motherhood with a career is like getting the knack of brain 
surgery" (1999: 7). One friend confessed to me, "There is never a day in which 
I feel I am both a good mother and a good academic; it is always one or the 
other." And the older and more educated and career-oriented the new mother, 
the greater the "nurture shock"-or, the more dissonance she will experience 
between her former controlled existence and her new reality. Any woman who 
has become a mother knows that motherhood is not just another task-it is the 
task to end all tasks. I t  is life altering. Yet these kernels of insight rarely make 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering / 125 
Joanne H. Wright 
it into our public or private discourse about motherhood; we rarely take off the 
mask that Maushart has identified to reveal our true selves. 
Maushart is at her most insightful, and most humourous, when she enters 
the fray surrounding birth and breastfeeding. The mask of motherhood, she 
argues, prevents us from being honest with other women about what is really 
involved in giving birth and in breastfeeding. Her chapter entitled, "Labouring 
under Delusions," takes on contemporary prenatal discourse. Never, she 
argues, have women been so equippedwith-information about childbirth, and 
yet been so woefully unprepared for the actual experience of it. While in our 
mothers' or grandmothers' generation, a "good birth" meant a live birth, a good 
birth in the modern lexicon refers to a "meaningful birth." As she rightly 
observes, "it is because we can now be so confident about a successful outcome 
in the form of a healthy baby that we can afford the luxury of examining birth 
as a process imbued with meaning in its own right" (1999: 70). Indeed, it has 
been invested with so much significance that we have forgotten that it is more 
than the culmination of pregnancy, it is the commencement of at least two new 
lives, that of baby and mother. In focussing most of its attention on strategies 
for the "good birth" rather than on coping methods for new motherhood, 
prenatal education ultimately fails us. After all, "[clhildbirth is one day, more 
or less, in a woman's life; motherhood is forever" (1999: 71). I t  is not that 
Maushart denies the power of birthing experiences, she is merely questioning 
the relative weight prenatal education assigns to it. 
Moreover, the obsessive preparation for birth, with the creation of the 
right birth plan, deludes women into believing that they can control and 
manage their own births. Yet my own obstetrician put it best when he stated 
plainly, "The thing about birth is, you can't plan it." Having the information is 
still better than ignorance, but having information in abundance "may produce 
its own brand offolly" (1999: 75). Indeed, Maushartpoints out that women are 
"encouraged to regard childbirth as a performance, a testing of their maternal 
mettle" (1999: 75). Unfortunately, statistical evidence shows that most women 
come away from the experience reporting they did not feel in control, that they 
were taken aback by the unmanageability of the pain, and that they did not 
"perform" well. 
The woman who has given birth with an epidural or via cesarean 
section will worry that she has somehow cheated. By contrast, her 
sister who endures the full nine yards of biblical travail-having 
bought into the mythology that all you really need for the pain is 
breath control, a sincere partner, and batteries for the Discman-will 
feel that she has been cheated. ("How could they have told such 
lies?". . .) (1999:79) 
As long as birth is judged as a performance, it will be difficult to avoid the 
competition that currently surrounds it ("My birth was great; I just squatted to 
126 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Unmasking Ourselves 
deliver the baby.. ." vs. "I was in agony for 36 hours.. ."). In this competition, 
the "good birth" advocates are challenged by those who, at the drop of a hat,will 
reveal their most horrific birth stories to the yet uninitiated. While this latter 
discourse of complaint and negativity may be more honest than contemporary 
  re natal education, it does more to inspire fear than to actually prepare women 
for the experience of giving birth. 
In perhaps her most courageous insight, Maushart suggests that women's' 
"success" (however it is defined) at childbirth is largely determined by luck. The 
extent of both our suffering and our ability to withstand the pain comes down 
to pure chance-a lottery. Recognizing that "it is pure heresy to say so" 
Maushart contends that everything depends on the baby's positioning, timing, 
and "the woman's innate physical endowments" (1999: 88). This is a liberating 
revelation! Recognizing the lottery ofchildbirth might be scary for some simply 
because it means we have to admit to ourselves that we do not control it, but 
at the same time it also frees us from the trap of seeing childbirth as a test or 
performance. 
In her chapter on breastfeeding, "Lactation Intolerant: The Worst of 
Breast Is Best," the author is similarly insightful and heretical. If the child- 
feeding pendulum has swung from pro-infant formula in the 1950s and 1960s 
to a strong "breast is best" ethic from the 1970s through the 1990s, The Mask 
of Motherhood is evidence that the pendulum is once again in motion. While 
acknowledging that breast is indeed best, Maushart rails against the breastfeeding 
lobby for their self-righteousness. She takes exception to the judgemental 
language with which breastfeeding advocates dismiss bottle-feeding ("artificial 
feeding") just as she calls into question the notion that breastfeeding comes 
easily and naturally to all women. She is most concerned with the unwritten 
terms ofwhat I call the breastfeeding contract. Yes, on the surface, everybody 
gains: baby gets the best nourishment; mother does not have to prepare bottles; 
and both enjoy the unique bonding experience. But breastfed babies also tend 
to sleep for shorter durations, increasing their mothers' fatigue, and breastfeeding 
is, for a significant number ofwomen, a very painful experience. Furthermore, 
"every woman who attempts to breast feed will discover what the mask of 
motherhood never reveals: breastfeeding is not merely an 'option' but a way of 
life" (1999: 151). And as a way of life, it is radically out of sync with "the 
expectations of everyday adult life that today's women increasingly share with 
men" (1999: 169). "Don't expect to be able to do anything else," a doctor friend 
advised me about breastfeeding. She was right-for most women new to 
breastfeeding, a shower is an accomplishment. Women deserve to know this 
when they embark on the experience. Manywill choose to breastfeed anyway- 
and they will surrender control over their lives to do it-but how much "undue 
frustration and self-blame" (1999: 169) could be avoided if they entered into 
this contract with their eyes open? 
Both our prenatal and child-rearing discourses are fraught with a primary 
inconsistency that exacerbates the confusion and uncertainty of new mothers. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 127 
Joanne H. Wright 
On the one hand, we are bombarded with advice books and manuals that give 
us (often conflicting) technical advice on what to do for our babies. But on the 
other hand, this technical advice is punctuated with affirmations that we will 
somehow know what is best because mothering is instinctual and intuitive. 
Maushart observes that "the very existence of these texts implicitly (and often 
explicitly as well) undermines the new mother's confidence not only in her own 
judgment but in the accumulated wisdom of her own peers and elders" (1999: 
141). As children of the information age, we have come to trust apparently 
objective and scientific knowledge over the experience of our mothers, sisters, 
aunts and grandmothers, and this, for Maushart, represents an "incalculable 
loss." As she puts it, "what we don't know about motherhood is what we refuse 
to hear and refuse to see in the lives of women around us, in the arrogant 
presumption that we are unique, that we will be different. Ultimately, we will 
pay dearly for our hubris" (1999: 144). 
T o  a new mother, Maushart's (1999) revelations are epiphanic. And I 
suspect for many mothers with more experience, reading The Mask ofmother- 
hoodwill confirm much of what they already know. Maushart articulates a 
whole range of contradictory experiences and emotions that otherwise go 
unexplained in mothering. What is missing, in her view, is a vibrant, open, and 
honest public conversation about both the challenges and the unparalleled joys 
of becoming a mother in late modern Western culture. This is a conversation 
that needs to take place between mothers themselves, and it ought to extend 
into the medical establishment, to prenatal classes, and perhaps especially to 
places like La Leche League, where one most expects an honest discourse but 
often comes away frustrated and even downright annoyed. Such a conversation 
would prevent each of us from having to "laboriously [reinvent] the wheel of 
motherhood"; it would prevent motherhood from being what Phyllis Chesler 
has called a wilderness experience. In our society, Chesler argues, pregnancy, 
childbirth, and motherhood "are savage tests of your ability to survive the 
wilderness alone. And to keep quiet aboutwhat you've seen" (cited in Maushart, 
1999: 12). 
To  alter the current situation, however, we need more than a conversation 
about motherhood, and we need to do more than change the ideals of 
mothering. In effect, we need to change the social and economic conditions of 
mothering. While Maushart (1999) recognizes the incompatibility between 
the tempo and expectations of everyday life in late modern Western societies 
and the demands of motherhood, she does not extend her recommendations to 
include changes to the economic organization of our society. She is right to 
point out that one of the fundamental challenges for women is to negotiate a 
"balance" between mothering and outside employment. But as long as we are 
governed by a market system, and as long as the structures of the market 
determine the arrangements of the remainder of our lives, any sort of "balance" 
will remain elusive. Women's places in a market economy are already precari- 
ous, and becoming a mother only increases our economic risk and heightens the 
128 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Unmasking Ourselves 
tension between public and private roles and obligations. In a sense, our failure 
to articulate the realities of motherhood to each other is related to our 
reluctance to address the indisputable contradictions of our current economic 
system. 
Conversely, perhaps initiating a discussion about the problems with the 
mask of motherhood and the disjunctures between the illusions and realities of 
mothering will also lead us into a conversation about the need to address the 
larger, systemic obstacles to a more meaningful and rewarding mothering 
experience. As it stands, The Mask ofMotherhoodpresents a rather bleak picture. 
But it is bleak not because it is "down on motherhood," as my doulawarned me 
it might be when she read its suggestive subtitle, but because it exposes the 
faultlines in our culturally-accepted conspiracy of silence. At one and the same 
time, it is affirming because it identifies motherhood as something other than- 
and something far more than-what Martha Stewart depicts. 
References 
Maushart, Susan. (1999). The Mask ofMotherhood How Becoming a Mother 
Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't. New York The New 
Press. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 129 


Unmasking Ourselves: Resisting the Martha Stewart-ization of Motherhood. A review essay of Susan Maushart, The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend it Doesn't

O'Brien, Leigh M.

Book Reviews 
Motherspace," etc. In this section, Davis- Thompson urges mothers to 
meditate to be kind to themselves, and to "settle yourself into the womb of 
God's sweet motherlove." The second half of the book, "Motherlove," focuses 
on a mother's relationship with her children (of all ages), with themes including 
dicipline, influences, authority, and spiritual inheritance. She uses inclusive 
language throughout. 
Most meditations are proceeded by a quotation and followed by a brief 
&rmation, such as "I will point my child in the direction ofhis honorable self." 
Davis- Thompson quotes a rich variety of sources, including Audre Lorde, 
Renita Weems, Wayne Dwyer, DeepakChopra, andT.D. Jakes. There are also 
many biblical quotations. The book is beautifully put together with a colourfil 
mural on the cover by African American artist Kimberly Camp; Gracing many 
of the pages are black and white African-inspired graphics. 
There is nothing radical or earth-shaking about this book. The author is 
articulating for contemporary mothers a long standing tradition and she 
admirably hlfills her purpose of inspiring readers. I found myself wishing for 
more details, anecdotes, and illustrations. The book does not attempt to be 
scholarly, analytical, or even narrative; it is pithy, terse, and wise. It  is superior 
to other similar books because it is so unsentimental; it does not idealize self- 
sacrifice or submission to men (the way so many devotional books do), and it 
is not at all legalistic. This is valuable reading for any mother (including Euro- 
Americans) who want daily inspiration for the gritty work of raising children 
today, especially those who were not nurtured well themselves. It  speaks to 
"other mothers" such as fathers, teachers, mentors, and grandparents.,Indi- 
rectly, it will interest scholars who seekinsight into African American spiritu- 
ality. 
Motherlove is being marketed to African American mothers of all ages 
(including teen mothers, battered women, and low-income women); the 
publisher also promotes workshops by the author and a book-donation 
program for needy women. 
Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency 
E. N. Glenn, G. Chang and L. R. Forcey, Eds. 
New York: Routledge, 1994 
Reviewed by Leigh M. O'Brien 
This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who "provide 
a variety of perspectives on mothering as a socially constructed set of activities 
and relationships" (X). The first chapter, which serves as an introduction, 
176 1 Volume 3, Number 2 
Book Reviews 
presents an overview of social constructions of mothering organized around five 
themes: diversity in mothering; ideology and the construction of mothering; 
deconstructing (or, as the author puts it, "decomposing") mothering; the 
politics of mothering; and mothering and the difference-equality knot. 
These five themes are addressed in detail in the chapters that follow. 
Overarching premises are reflected in the following quotation from the first 
chapter: 
I propose looking at mothering as a historically and culturally variable 
relationship "in which one individual nurtures and cares for another." Moth- 
ering occurs within specific social contexts that vary in terms of material and 
cultural resources and constraints. How mothering is conceived, organized, 
and carried out is not simply determined by these conditions, however. 
Mothering is constructed through men's and women 1 actions within spec@ histori- 
calcircumstances [italics added]. Thus agency is central to an understanding of 
mothering as a social, rather than biological, construct. (Chang, 1994: 3) 
The reader sees exactly how mothering is constructed in chapters such as 
"Diverted Mothering: Representations of Caregivers of Color in the Age of 
'Multiculturalism"' (Part 1); "Beyond Mothers and Fathers: Ideology in a 
Patriarchal Society" (Part 2); "Working at Motherhood: Chicana and Mexican 
Immigrant Mothers and Employment" (Part 3); and the chapter that still 
resonates in my head, "Mothering under Slavery in the Antebellum South 
(Part 4). 
The book's strength is also its weakness, however. A very broad focus 
illuminates the subject of mothering, but the volume does not achieve coher- 
ence. I was leftwith an expanded but partialunderstanding ofthe book's general 
themes. Perhaps more editorial direction, more linking of themes across the 
four parts, would have made the book more accessible and hence more useful. 
I do not hesitate, however, to recommend this book to those interested in 
how mothering is viewed through diverse eyes and constructed in varying 
circumstances. Dipping in at will may well provoke a reader's thoughts and 
reflections on the connections between mothering and gender/race/social class, 
feminism, and culture. For it is crucially important that we hear diverse voices 
telling of mothering experiences, and that we become aware of the ideologies 
impacting views and practices of mothers and mothering. W e  are all dimin- 
ished if we "buy into" an essentialized, universal, or overly deterministic 
conception of mothering; we must acknowledge the agency inherent in 
mothering and support those who do the hard work of mothering in multiple 
contexts. 
Journal of tbe Association for Research on Mothering / 177 


Mothering: Ideology, Experience and Agency

Thomas, Trudelle

Shut That Kid Up: Motherhood as Social Dislocation

Halliday, Christina

Christina Halliday 
coming from 
my mother's body 
I know no woman-virgin, mother, lesbian, married, celibate- 
whether she earns her keep as a housewife, a cocktail waitress, or a 
scanner of brain waves-for whom her body is not a fundamental 
problem: its clouded meaning, its fertility, its desire, its so-called 
frigidity, its bloody speech, its silences, its changes and mutilations, its 
rapes and ripenings. (Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born) 
They have transferred me hurriedly to a narrow, metal bed. I can feel the 
hospital shirt on my slun. A soft, thin tissue against the piercing chill of the 
metal bed, the pervasive, wet-cold of the operating room, the freshly scrubbed 
hands that are arranging my body-placing my left arm here, drawing my knees 
up, molding me into a ball on my side. As a rope of pain squeezes breath from 
my chest, I realize, finally-we coulddie. 
Soft, sympathetic touch on my shoulder, "Don't move Christina. We're 
starting the epidural." 
We could die. 
"I'm having a contraction, just wait." 
"We can't wait Christina, stay still." 
We could die. 
Minutes before, as my midwife stood helplessly nearby, the on-call 
obstetrician said to me in a kind, apologetic voice, "Your baby is in distress 
because you have developed something called pre-eclampsia. We have to do an 
emergency C-section." Such an ugly word-pre-eclampsia. I t  tumbled out of 
the obstetrician's mouth and dropped heavily on me-a hot iron of searing 
memories. 
122 1 Volume 3, Number 1 
Pre-eclampsia: a toxic condition developing in late pregnancy that is 
characterized by a sudden rise in blood pressure, excessive gain in weight, 
generalized edema, albuminuria, severe headache, and visual disturbances. 
(Mirriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary) 
Pre-eclampsia. Part ofmy maternal alphabet. Legacy from my mother. My 
body knows that this is a definition drained of all real meaning. My mother's 
body knows. That we can, unwillingly, become baby killers. Our wombs and 
blood turning poisonous, deadly. Our fragile babies unsafe and foreign to us. 
This is what weshare between us-mothers, daughters, sisters. This sinister gift. 
My mother in the hospital in a narrow, metal bed. I was 15 years old. I 
remember her small, saggy belly bound by a black, fetal monitor. [How could 
my sister be in there?] My mother asked me how things were going at home and 
school. I came closer to the bed she was confined to for weeks. Unwashed hair 
tucked carelessly behind her ears. She talked and moved slowly. Didn't touch 
me. I smelled old sweat and worry. I was afraid of her. 
Why are we enemies to our own children when they need us most? On both of 
our bellies there is a long, redandraisedreminderofthe womb that became dangerous. 
The childpulled out in distress and emergency. The signature ofpre-eclampsia. Our 
own, personal, bodily failures. 
Curled in a ball on that too narrow, operating bed. A very young and 
extremely awkward resident sticks a tube into my spine-he jumbles his words 
and looks at the senior anaesthetist all the time for confirmation that he is doing 
things right. I want the resident out of the operating room and I tell the 
anaesthetist so. He  steps purposely forward and I see his benign face in my field 
of vision. 
"Christina, Dr. Thompson is in his last year of residency and he's done 
more epidurals in the last six months than I have. You're fine." 
No. I'm notjne. But, I can't argue now. Ijust can't because l a m  only a small, 
scared, thin shred of myselfand there is no substance in me toJightyou with. 
I let Dr. Thompson continue. 
White, illuminated ceiling. M y  eyes are taking it in-opening wider. Activity 
is at the ridges of my vision. Touch andsoundareat my border. Do whateveryou have 
to do. I a m  desperate to hold the boney heelthat tracedthe length of my ribcage when 
we were t y i n g  to sleep. Hungry to run myjnger along the perfect, little spine of my 
silver, skeletaljsh. Ican't believe it. There is no choice here. M y  body is for her now. 
I am for her now. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 123 
Christina Halliday 
The anaesthetic is pumping, cold, down the length of my back. "Can you 
feel this!" The obstetrician asks, as he drags a scalpel across my stomach, 
'Yes, sharp pain. Yes." They wait. 
More pumping, cold, like a wash of water from the garden hose. 
Can I feel it? 'Yes, sharp pain like a knife. I can feel it." They wait some 
more. Through the sterile blanket hung across my chest, I hear low, concerned 
murmurs. They are saying that the epidural is not taking. 
Dion is sitting beside me, whispering in my ear, "Everything is going to be 
okay. It's going to work this time." Before I can even acknowledge what he has 
said there is more pumping of cold liquid through my spine. 
"Can you feel this?" 
'Yes. It's a dull blade now." 
I hear the urgent words, "Let's go!" 
They are slicing me. Down there. Below my cool and exposed centre. I am just 
waiting for an ending t o  come. Just tunneling down to a quietplace of no motion, no 
mind. I have t o  go here because f I  stay with my body I am scared I will die. 
The doctors are muttering something about her head. 
Soft hands are digging deep. Scooping the earth out of my belly andrearchindor 
my root, which is her. Pullingthe root but it's not coming. Instead, the sharpestpoint 
is piercing me straight through. 
"Can you take the catheter out? It  really hurts!" 
The anaesthetist appears in my vision again. "I'm sorry," he says, "there's 
nothing we can do about that now." 
All of the sudden there is an immense sense of relief in my belly. The 
obstetrician announces, "Thick meconium!" The room gets tense. 
Someone says, amidst the hurry and concern, "Congratulations, you have 
a baby girl." 
Ababygirl. Aperson cutpom me with a kn fe. Is she really mine? But what does 
thatfeellike? Ican't even see her. Idon 'tfe elproud or elated to have her. l a m  distant, 
shocked--nothing. 
Someone is squeezing a kitten in the operating room. I hear very scared, 
very weak meowing. This is my daughter. She is being lifted from my belly and 
taken to another place in the room. They say she has no breath. 
Out of the corner of my eye I can see they are working very hard on her. 
Dion is muttering over and over, "Don't worry Christina. Don't worry." 
Can'tyou tell? I am turning t o  stone now. Closing my eyes and letting words 
splatter on my suface like rain. IAM worried because this is what I really am. The 
124 1 Volume 3, Number 1 
comingj-om my mother's body 
failure. The bad mother. The one who cannot love. 
M y  baby, I'm sowy. Because I have to be alone during this most important 
moment when Ishould be with you. You are in your own struggle now. And Ithink 
I might die. You see, my placenta needs to come out. Doctors, are you doing it? Oh 
please do it right because Idon't want to bleedto death. And my uterus, allstretched 
andfloppy, are you sewing it up? Neatly? I don't want it to rip open with the next 
child, fthere is one. Where are my intestines? I imagine they are carefilly arranged 
on a sterile, blue sheet. Quicklyput them back. Good. Keep working. l a m  waiting to 
be whole again. 
They have given me a polaroid of a tiny, baby girl. Dion is calling her 
Veronika. There are tubes in her nose, her arm, the top of her right foot. She 
is peering into the camera with her dark eyes, as iflooking for someone. While 
my mother and sister watch me slowly become myself again in the recovery 
room, I hold this picture to myself and pretend to be completely enamoured 
with the little girl whom the doctors say is still in danger. 
Dear Veronika: 
The nurses want me to sleep but I won't until I feel your warm, new skin 
beneath my fingertips. They tell me I can see you tomorrow but I am afraid that 
tomorrow wdl be too late to become your mother. You may fall in love with 
someone else by then. 
I know I should feel love but right now I cannot feel. There is something 
wrong with me. I think that when they took you out you were holding my heart 
on a string. And maybe it's with you now, in the incubator, floating around like 
a delicate, red balloon. I hope you can hear the gentle whispers of my heart, 
because I placed them inside before they tookyou down the hall. This is my love 
saying your name, soothing you, until this heavy numbness goes away. Please 
listen and wait for me. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 125 


coming from my mother’s body

Turnbull, Lorna A.

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 
Book Reviews 
and childrearing is, in fact, interactive. A statistical depiction of contemporary 
diversity among families is provided in the third chapter. The author illustrates 
the way many ofthe changes in familylife have had a negative economic impact 
on women. 
Specific diversities in contemporary Canadian families are examined in 
part two, 'Welcoming Family Diversity". Each author shows how myths about 
the traditional family and prejudices against diversity have resulted in harmful 
experiences for many people. Lesbians and gay men have experienced signifi- 
cant discrimination in family formation, as illustrated in Chapter Four, and 
lesbian and gay youth often endure physical and verbal harassment, social 
isolation, and rejection by their families of origin and peers. In Chapter Five, 
the author illustrates how state policies founded on racism have adversely 
affected family formation among Aboriginal Canadians, immigrants and 
people of colour. The final chapter in Part Two shows the devastating 
consequences on families of poverty, noting that structural inequalities have 
widened the gap between "have" and "have not" families. 
'Confronting Change" is the final part ofthis excellent collection. Chapter 
Seven offers a critical perspective on feminist inspired legal reform in the area 
of family law. The author despairs of the failure to conceptualize women's 
varied situations and the corresponding detriments that many women suffer 
upon the implementation of monolithic legal changes. Chapter Eight argues 
that single mothers are not long-term users of social assistance but rather 
struggle against destructive social policy to avoid long-term dependencies. The 
penultimate chapter explores the lack of effective policy solutions to the 
problem of family violence and attributes some of this difficulty to prevailing 
beliefs in the myth of family harmony and prosperity. The tenth chapter 
reviews the unique situation of aging families with an emphasis on the 
importance of intergenerational caregiving. 
The editors conclude their opening remarks with the following thought: 
Family diversity characterizes our past and present arrangements. 
Acknowledging diversity enables us to recognize the dynamic nature 
of families, interacting as they do with the ever-changing social, 
political, cultural and economic contexts that surround and shape 
daily life. Postmodern families embrace change, celebrate diversity, 
revel in contradiction and work to demolish violence. (14) 
This is a great place from which to move forward. 
190 1 Volume 3, Number 2 


Canadian Families: Diversity, Conflict and Change. Second Edition

Newall, Alison

Alison Newall 
Ode to my stretch marks 
On a beach in Mexico I lie, 
a bikini clad cipher. 
I am no longer picture 
perfect. 
Not for me the swim suit edition: 
I'll never now be 
food for fantasy 
cause an airbrushed 
hush from the 
pages of a magazine, be 
subject to a hungry 
gaze. 
But 
my thighs can tell a story: 
fine traceries of faded lines 
embroider breasts 
embellish hips 
spell out my adventures 
in the wars of birth. 
I am borne into a new generation, 
become one with those who know, 
by their blood's baptism, 
another code. 
I do not envy those 
perfect girls: 
their bodies tell no tales 
they become images 
for other people's stories. 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 121 


Ode to my stretch marks

LeBlanc, L. Suzanne

Book Reviews 
Lesbian Parenting: 
Living with Pride and Prejudice 
Katherine Arnup, ed. 
Charlottetown: Gynergy books, 1997 
Reviewed by L. Suzanne LeBlanc 
Kathrine Arnup's edited volume Lesbian Parenting: Living With Pride and 
Prejudice is the first to consider lesbian motherhood a the Canadian context. 
The paucity of Canadian material on lesbian parenting is made clear by this 
book. Most resources either are located or based primarily in the United States 
with branches in Canada. 
This book contributes to the literature by providing a much needed 
. - - 
discussion of lesbian parenting from many perspectives. I t  includes five 
sections: (1) choosing parenthood; (2) defining "family"; (3) raising children; 
(4) parents and children: reflections on identity; and (5) lesbian parents and the 
law. Women write about their experiences of lesbian parenting, from making 
the decision whether or not to parent and how to go about becoming a parent. 
Much of the focus is on the difficult choice of whether to turn to artificial 
reproduction or adoption to become a parent. The trials, tribulations, and costs 
of artificial insemination are experienced by all women-including lesbians- 
who put their bodies through such medical procedures in order to conceive. 
But, as Bernstein and Stephenson note in their piece entitled "Dykes, Donors 
& Dry Ice: Alternative Insemination," not all women have equal access to 
fertility clinics. Access to fertility clinics for lesbian couples is often limited and 
many face additional hurdles in their attempts to become parents. 
The nine articles in the second section address the challenge lesbian 
parents face in defining their roles as parents for themselves, their children, 
family, and society. The authors address the complicated issue of how to define 
their roles in families since conventional labels (mother, father, child, parent) 
were constructed and are used to describe and define the typical heterosexual 
family. 
This collection of articles serves to illuminate the reality and experiences 
of lesbian families. I t  highlights the pervasive, monolithic image "family" as 
a two parent, heterosexual union with biological offspring- a stumbling block 
to lesbian parents. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the 
subject of lesbian parenting and parenting and families in Canadian society. 
234 1 Volume 3, Number 1 


Lesbian Parenting: Living With Pride and Prejudice

Hammond, Merryl

Book Reviews 
Chopin's TheAwakening by observing the "double-voiced discourse" in a novel 
that "privileges the language of birth" not only in imagery but in structure as 
well. Had they read Debra Beilke's essay on little-known writers Julia Peterkin 
and Frances Newman, my students could have explored the psychological 
dilemma of mothers in the early decades of twentieth-century America. They 
could have broadened their understanding of the mother role through essays on 
African-American mothers, Native American mothers, and mothers whose 
children are the products of incest. For this is a book about pregnancy and 
childbirth in American women's writing and it will be most used in literary 
circles; it also provides a valuable overview of the history of feminist theory 
concerning mothers. 
Like any study, however, it has its weaknesses. In their introduction, the 
editors acknowledge that "the voices of Asian-American and Latina mothers 
- 
are not heard," but since no single book can be responsible for representing all 
perspectives, that flaw seems less problematic than the fact that the collection 
lacks an index. For a work to be useful to scholars, it must contain a detailed, 
thoughtfully constructed index that enables readers to ferret out information. 
Perhaps, though, the editors did not have a scholarly audience in mind, which 
is suggested by the two essays that frame the collection. The lead essay, a first- 
person rumination on the effect of childbirth on writer Karen Haas-Howland, 
creates a false first impression of a book that is largely objective and scholarly 
in tone. Equally out of place in this volume is the final essay, a series of 
introspective journal entries in which author Kimberly Blaeser reflects on her 
son's first three years and the impact of his birth on her writing. Both Haas- 
Howland and Blaeser are eloquent on the subject of women writers and the 
challenges they face when they become mothers, but perhaps their essays would 
have been less jarring if they had followed the eight academic pieces, accom- 
panied perhaps by a brief introduction to announce the volumes shift in tone. 
Despite these complaints, however, feminists in all fields, and especially 
those of us involved in the study of literature, will feel grateful to Tharp and 
MacCallum-Whitcomb for this valuable collection that illuminates an impor- 
tant but often neglected subject in American letters. 
Mothers Talk Back: Momz Radio 
Margaret Dragu, Sarah Sheard and Susan Swan, eds. 
Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991 
Reviewed by Merryl Hammond 
This bookis unusual in that each chapter is a transcript of a radio interview that 
features a woman (and one man) reflecting on one aspect of their experience as 
a parent. Contributors are coping with: a premature baby ("[Some months after 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 239 
Book Reviews 
the birth] I turned around and looked at her for the first time and saw that this 
baby wasn't an it, and that it was a baby girl"); a special needs child ("I think it's 
not uncommon for fathers to pick up on children's disabilities easier than 
mothers - perhaps because of the emotional closeness, there just seems to be a 
greater kind of denial that kicks in with the mothern); being a lesbian mom 
("What saved my life absolutely was a mothers' support group that I got into 
very early on"); step-mothering ("You have to deal with the problems and 
feelings that are still unresolved from the previous marriage. You are coming 
in on Act Two"); single parenthood ("I started thinking of prisoners and 
invalids and mothers in the same breath. I felt the confinement"), and so on. 
My favourite chapters feature Jane Grant reflecting to interviewer Diane 
Martin on "The Male Child: Is he Different?" ("It's not our sole responsibility 
to raise non-violent boys. Mothers are one person in their children's lives. I'm 
not going to be responsible for a violent action he makes. That is his 
responsibility.") and Guy Allen's thought-provoking piece with interviewer 
Susan Swan, "Mr. Mom: Motherhood Expresses Me Beautifully" ("I've always 
felt that the best thing a parent can do is live a good life, and then a child can 
see what that is.") 
I was excited by the prospect of reading individual accounts ofparenthood 
and at times I felt tantalizingly close to one of those wonderful moments of 
insight that can be had in reading. But something prevented those moments. 
At times it was the jarring questions and probing style ofthe interviewers. 
(At one point, an exasperated Sidney Shadbolt, says: "You've got to be kidding 
to ask a question like that. Come on, Margaret, get real!") Perhaps, it was the 
lack of an overreaching theme for the project that caused me to feel bogged 
down by trivia. A good editor (one who was not herself an interviewer) would 
have cut interruptions, second-guessing by the interviewers, and other extra- 
neous material (like bus numbers and routes in the neighbourhoods, etc.) that 
have no place in an edited volume. In general, I learned far too much about 
individuals' circumstances, and not nearly enough from their insights, frustra- 
tions, and joys as parents. 
In 1991 when this book was ~ublished, the idea of an editing a volume to 
give voice to mothers was obviously excellent. Unfortunately, these particular 
radio interviews do not translate well in print. 
240 1 Volume 3, Number l 
