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

Gold, Marion Stichman

Book Reviews 
from the mother is necessary for the development of masculine identity. (The 
flaws in Sayers's book-a general lack of racial, cultural, and class distinctions; 
ignoring cultural institutions; a failure to include the subjectivity of the mother; 
flabby sentences, despite the graceful transitions between ideas-pale in 
comparison to this courageous challenge.) Once the relational union with the 
mother is rent, the sense of division between authenticity and inauthenticity, 
mind and body, develops and persists. In adolescence, for instance, boys resist 
emotional expression, which they associate with their mothers, in favor of 
expression of action: yet another splitting. Some psychoanalysts, however, 
notably John Bowlby, D. W. Winnicott, and Wilfred Bion, stress the impor- 
tance of the child's emotional closeness to the mother, and her role in receiving, 
converting, and containing all that is frightening to him, much as Sayers 
advocates therapists do. 
Awareness of the conflicts, followed by re-integration of the extreme, 
conflicting emotions-re-containing them-is the key for therapists and 
others. In adulthood, this enables the telling of a new story based on a newly 
integrated past. The result will be community and closeness rather than 
individuals divided from themselves. For in the place of an androcentric 
society's valorization of false gods, heroes, and saviors, new feminist therapies 
and their resulting stories will locate the mother: a mother from whom it is not 
necessary to separate spiritually, socially, and psychically. 
Girl Rearing: Memoir of a Girlhood Gone Astray 
Marcia Aldrich 
New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1998 
Reviewed by Marion Gold 
Every word in Marcia Aldrich's memoir holds the promise that girlhood and 
growing up to maturity in a gendered, segmented societywill be a struggle. Yet 
there is a note of sweetness about the innocence of childhood spent at the 
bottom of the garden, secreted away from prying adult eyes. This is the tale of 
a mother thwarted by her last child, a daughter who will not be molded into 
conformity. 
Aldrich exposes women's rites de passage of marriage and child rearing in 
the 50s as devoid of meaning and through her expressive language, holds it up 
for readers to contemplate but not to ridicule. These women, not unlike her 
mother, ensconced in their cages of conformity, sought to imprison their 
daughters within those same narrow confines. 
From the inauspicious circumstances of her birth in the alley, in the back 
204 1 Volume 2, Number I 
Book Reviews 
seat of the family sedan, a seminal event well-planned and gone amiss, our 
heroine, M ,  continues to stray from the paved, walled road of conformity laid 
out for her. True to her unconventional introduction to the world, M strives to 
follow her own inner voice throughout childhood. The dialogue with herself 
about when to acquiesce to parental commands and when not to holds the 
promise of strife to follow. 
The use of split text to add power to the inner and outer dialogue in the 
chapter on her oldest sister is an exquisite example of post modernist style and 
is evocative of an era that demanded conformity, control, and obedience of 
daughters andwives. M never quite lives up to expectations; yet there are small 
moments of e~iphanywhen we glimpse the promise of a future not ~redicated 
by past failures. Mother is a 50s type, obsessive cleaner of a house, a woman who 
can only control the externality of experience. And this is all the independence 
that she will permit herself and her daughters. 
M's first burst offreedom is achieved through learning to ride horses from 
awomanwho speaks in metaphor. Eventually she loses her favourite mount and 
stops riding. Young girls must not seek freedom and independence through 
riding. They must not have crotches. 
The underlying theme of rebellion and the search for freedom from 
constraints imposed from above is echoed and re-echoed through M's narra- 
tives of small acts of defiance, culminating in her sexual liaisons with inappro- 
priate father figures in college. She is seduced into the idea of marriage with one 
such man and suffers a breakdown. The marriage is doomed before it begins. 
A second marriage and the birth of a daughter hold forth the promise of 
redemption. Salvation is hinted at in the flourishing, randomly planted garden 
and with the birth of her daughter. And yet.. . "Why did you name me Lily?" 
". . . my mother's favourite flower was lily of the valley." "But we hardly see your 
mother." This is a well-told tale of a young woman's struggle to emerge 
somewhat victoriously from the imposition of her mother's will into the light 
of her own day. 
A Better Woman: A Memoir 
Susan Johnson 
Sydney, Australia: Ramdom House, 1999 
Reviewed by Joan Garvan 
Reading A Better Woman is like talking with one of the mothers at the local 
playgroup. The difference, however, is that you have all afternoon, free of 
Journal oftbe Association for Research on Mothering 1 205 


English

Girl Rearing: Memoir of a Girlhood Gone Astray

Panofsky, Ruth

Ruth Panofsky 
The Moment of Goldfish 
It took five years 
to arrive at the moment of goldfish 
and now he is proud 
keeper of two 
who rely on him 
for nourishment 
and care 
This 
is my child's simple yearning: 
to nurture 
two beings 
smaller 
and weaker 
than himself 
Here you stand 
taller than my breasts 
arms reaching up 
to grasp my head 
in an insistent embrace 
120 1 Volume 2, Number l 
You are unyielding 
in this combined show 
of strength and devotion 
for the woman 
who bore you 
unaware then 
that my own show of strength 
would soon be matched 
by a boy 
released into life 
gasping for milk 
and for breath 
He moulds 
moist clay 
smooths 
the rough exterior 
refines and shapes 
a small bowl 
In this 
his first work 
in clay 
he seeks perfection 
already lost 
to his six-year-old 
world 
I am not the same 
since the doctor 
called to say 
your son 
has Tourette Syndrome 
since then 
I see things 
differently 
distorted by a sharp 
twitch here 
a random 
jerk there 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 121 
Ruth Panofky 
sound now springs 
from my throat at 
odd moments 
when speaking with 
my boss 
or reading 
to the children 
I catch myself 
click click clicking 
and recall that 
I'm not the one 
with Tourette 
but that no longer 
seems true 
Buoyed gently 
in my womb 
a boy nestled 
unaware 
as the sweeping hand 
of god 
was lured down 
downward 
to touch 
ever so softly 
here 
and here 
shaping the unmistakable 
identity 
of those chosen 
and marked 
Cast adrift 
I float through days 
that once were substantial 
abruptly 
I start and shift 
uncertain now 
in thought and movement 
122 1 Volume 2, Number 1 
The Moment of Goldfish 
as the ground moulders 
underfoot 
my spirit unmoored 
by the practiced grip of illness 
determined to possess 
my boy 
and my will 
vii 
I recoil 
into a self 
wholly altered 
by my son's 
implacable sickness 
determined 
to thwart my attempt 
at perfect mothering 
The pain 
is acute 
on darkest days 
when his 
marked 
imperfection 
disheartens me 
SO 
... 
Vlll  
I mourn my lost child 
a fresh-faced boy of four 
torn from me 
by an illness 
that too soon claimed 
his flesh 
as hostage 
to an unholy visitor 
that defies his 
sweet determination 
to be himself 
to simply 
be 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 123 
Ruth Panofiky 
I have been shaped 
bythe b b b  
caught in my son's throat 
fluttering eyes 
pounding clap of hands 
and frenetic bursts 
of boundless energy 
signals of anxiety 
that overwhelm us 
son and mother both 
shackled 
by a disease 
that taunts human effort 
to overcome 
its merciless hold 
on our days 
and our lives 
When each morning 
forces my reacquaintance 
with an unnatural power 
the morbid 
dominatrix 
that possesses my son 
I retaliate with poems 
Against a formidable foe 
I wield my pen 
and with each line 
subdue the enemy 
within my boy 
for the briefest 
of seconds 
minutes 
hours 
124 ( Volume 2, Number 1 


The Moment of Goldfish

Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 
Fall/Winter 2000, Vol 2 No 2, 272 pages

Patton, Venetria K.

Policing our Daughters’ Bodies: Mothering in African Literature

Bernard, Wanda Thomas

Bringing Our Boyz to Men: Black Men’s Reflections on their Mother’s Childrearing Influences

Edwards, Arlene E.

Community Mothering: The Relationship Between Mothering and the Community Work of Black Women

Comeau, Dawn L.

Book Reviews 
underplay or deny the combined wisdom of therapist and stepmother. For 
instance, "Do a Two-Minute Reality Check" introduces a contemporary 
approach to dealing with those "evil stepmother/fathern emotions, where 
sittingl'with what is" becomes a way to the "emotional truth ofyour situation." 
For instance, "Oh, I'm hurt at getting no positive reinforcement from my 
stepchildren despite all I do for them; I'm angry at mywife's ex for not ponying 
up his share of the child support" (7). These are real issues. However, there is 
no discussion of how to share your "reality check" with your family-or even 
how to use it for your self-knowledge. I would have preferred more space 
devoted to the process of the "reality checkn; the decision to create sixty- four 
brief lessons, instead of expanding some of the book's more fundamental or 
difficult points, gives the text a slightly superficial feel. Perhaps this point-form 
method of presentation is designed to appeal to that very feeling of helplessness 
that the stepparent role can generate, by providing a lengthy checklist of things 
we can do, or do better. Or  perhaps this book is meant to be dipped into, at odd 
moments, for a bit of inspiration and illumination.There is a spiritual subtext 
to this work, aswe are uged to 'Search for the Soul Growth" in the stepparenting 
role, for "those of us who are stepparents have been given the special opportu- 
nity to grow our souls through the experience of interacting with and helping 
to carefor andguide someone else's childrenn (40). It is hard to argue with that-- 
however vaguely "New Age" the advice. I do agree that to find your role as a 
stepparent, you must recognize and put aside "smallness" on all levels. Despite 
its compression, this brief book is a first step towards a process of greater 
understanding of the complex nature of stepparenting in our age's self- 
conscious, "self-made" family. 
Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography of Love 
Janet M. Wright 
New York: Harrington Park Press, 1998 
Reviewed by Dawn L. Comeau 
In Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography oflove, Janet Wright, Assistant 
Professor and Chair of the Social Work Department at the University of 
Wisconsin, Whitewater, draws on personal experience as she explores a 
previously neglected area of research about lesbian families. Wright's book is 
based on her research for her dissertation: an ethnography of five lesbian step 
families. 
Wright defines a lesbian step family as "two women who self-define as 
lesbian, at least one of whom brings a child or children from a former 
246 1 Volume 2, Number 2 
Book Reviews 
relationship with her into the present family situation" (3). She is clear to 
indicate that she uses the words "lesbian" and "step" as adjectives. She rejects 
the term "step-family" because she believes it implies that step family structure 
is something "other than family" (3). Her research contributes to scholarship 
that documents and validates alternatives to traditional patriarchal nuclear 
families. 
Wright addresses three primary areas of interest in her research. She 
explores how two lesbian women negotiate parenting, when one is the 
biological mother with legal rights, and the other embodies an undefined social 
role that resembles the traditional step mother figure. Secondly, she examines 
how two lesbian women in a step family structure influence and affect their 
children's perception of male and female, and their understanding of adult 
unions. Furthermore, she analyses how these families cope with oppression 
and their marginalized status as lesbian step families, and how this impacts their 
family identity. 
Wright reviews literature on feminist theories about motherhood and 
family structures, homophobia and heterosexism, and discourses on step- 
families that neglect to include lesbian perspectives. She continues with a 
comprehensive outline ofher research methods and a description ofthe families 
that participated in her study. 
The majority of Wright's research focuses on the unique experiences in her 
participants' lives due to their lesbianism and their step-family configurations. 
In order to maintain a healthy functioning family, she finds that her partici- 
pants rely upon a "tolerant. community, a significantly open lesbiadgay 
population, other lesbian families to socialize with, any legal status for lesbian/ 
gay families and people, and a connection with supportive heterosexual friends, 
family, and acquaintances" (192). This includes presenting themselves as a 
"normal" family to "create acceptance based on similarity" while concurrently 
celebrating their lesbian family uniqueness and pride (193). 
This uniqueness includes her participants' abilities to create families 
without male adults. Thus, their family structures lack the presence of male 
privilege. As a result, children witness women accomplishing both traditional 
and nontraditional tasks according to desire and time-not gender assignment. 
Wright also considers the integration of a new parent into a preexisting family. 
She elaborates on the process of transforming the role of "step-parentn from 
outsider status to one of inclusion, and determines various methods of integra- 
tion based on the age of the children in the family, length of the couple's 
relationship, and their desires regarding familial responsibility and obligations. 
Wright's in-depth exploration of lesbian step families is an important 
contribution to feminist research, social work studies, gay and lesbian studies, 
and the gay and lesbian community. She accomplishes her goal, which is to 
disseminate knowledge that will assist in creating healthy, functional, lesbian 
step families. Her work is invaluable. I highly recommend it. 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 247 


Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography of Love

Bechtold, Brigitte H.

Mothers in the Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston

Steele, Cassie Premo

Drawing Strength from Our Mothers: Tapping the Roots of Black Women’s History

Hausman, Bernice L.

Book Reviews 
their 20s and 30s frequently switch places with their grandmothers, with the 
younger woman becoming the nurturer, care giver and confidant of the older 
woman. Edelman speaks eloquently of the emotional discomfort and pain that 
"greying" granddaughters experience as they see the health and strength of their 
grandmothers fail, and how a granddaughter's grief over the death of her 
grandmother does not have a forum. The death of a maternal grandmother 
means not only the passing of an era and the realignment of the female line, it 
also brings the loss of a multifaceted relationship, the loss of the granddaughter 
role and the loss of a direct connection to one's childhood. 
Before reading this book I had not thought much about the triad of my 
mother, my grandmother, and myself, or of the ways in which this trinity has 
influenced each of our lives. Like many ofthe other granddaughters in the book, 
I too was distanced from my grandmother, and often experienced a difficult 
relationship with my own mother. But, unlike Edelman, I did not have the 
good fortune of spending time with my maternal grandmother, who lived 
across an ocean, and died almost 25 years ago. We only saw each other for very 
brief periods of time once every few years, and my lone recollection of my 
Granny is of my last visit with her just before she died when I was 15. Although 
I did not have a strong relationship with my grandmother, reading Edelman's 
book has provided insight into my relationship with my own mother, and the 
significance of the triad I am in as a daughter and mother. I am more aware of 
the role of each one of us in my child's development and sense of self. 
Overall this book is beautifully written, and Edelman braids her own 
memories with those of other granddaughters and with psychological research, 
making her book a smooth and easy read. My only criticism, which is minor, 
comes from my position as an academic. I found Edelman's citation of sources 
to be unclear. Although she provides a good bibliography, the notes at the end 
of the book are not obvious in the text. It is not until I reached the end of the 
book that I found notes corresponding to references made within the text. 
Having said this, I strongly recommend M o t h e r  $My M o t h e r  to anyone 
interested in her own development as a woman, daughter, and mother, and to 
the role she may have in the development of future generations. 
The Reality of Breastfeeding: 
Reflections by Contemporary Women 
Amy Benson Brown and Kathryn Read McPherson, editors 
Westport, CT: Bergin and Gamey, 1998. 
Reviewed by Bernice L. Hausman 
In this volume, readersget avariety of short takes on breastfeeding in the latter 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering ( 201 
Book Reviews 
half of the twentieth century, mostly by white, heterosexual, middle class 
. . 
American women. The general story goes like this: breastfeeding is painid at 
the start (detailed exquisitely in the first section, "Latching On"), but in most 
cases it gets better and moms (and dads) learn to love the experience. The 
impression after reading the entire volume is of pain, problems, and (eventual) 
exaltation. 
Is this, in fact, the "reality" ofbreastfeeding? In the introduction the editors 
write that because "nursing is natural [but] . . . not instinctive," "having some 
initial physical difficulties is therefore extremely common" (6). But these very 
difficulties are amplified in a culture that promotes bottle feeding, denies that 
breastfeeding is anything but natural, and, most significantly, assumes an idea 
of the autonomous person that is incommensurate with the physiology of 
lactation. As Alice Edwards writes, "The connection between fetus and mother 
and later between mother and nursing baby belies all our advanced, Western 
ideas about the self' (68). The question ofwhether breastfeeding is instinctual 
is not what is at stake here. Rather, what is significant is the cultural context in 
which this practice of the parturient female body takes place. For this reason, 
I liked the final section of the anthology, "Moving On: Family, Work, and 
Political Issues," as in it the authors develop the most conscious discussions of 
the social contexts of nursing. 
Perhaps the editors are right that women need to be forewarned ofpossible 
pain and difficulty and need to be highly motivated to persist in the face of 
common breastfeeding problems (or those that arise in the "special problems 
and situations" of Part 11). But while I particularly liked those essays that 
represented the specific breastfeeding challenges I experienced-it was like 
comparing notes at a La Leche League meeting-the insistent reiteration of 
these makes overcoming them seem like heroism. We are, in fact, dangerously 
close here to idealizing maternal nursing-part of the pendulum swing of 
common stereotypes about breastfeeding (it's painful; it's magic). Only when 
we cease to perceive and experience lactation through these extremities will 
more women (and men) be able to accommodate it as an unexceptional aspect 
of maternal experience. 
Until then, however, we need The Reality ofBreasffeeding to make the 
experience legible for all of us who grew up without a discourse or set of 
representations to make it real. One ofthe best essays in the collection describes 
a mother who pumps and nurses her baby in a NICU (neonatal intensive care 
unit) in the early 1980s. The nurses screen off the room with sheets and 
cardboard so that no one can see what she is doing. When she leaves with her 
healthy baby, she sees an orderlywith the electric pump on a cart: "It is covered 
with a white sheet, like a corpse" (30). Short gems like this make reading 
through the descriptions of cracked nipples and exhaustion worthwhile. 
202 1 Volume 2, Number 1 


The Reality of Breastfeeding: Reflections by Contemporary Women