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

Johnson, J. Lauren

going home
 journal of the motherhood initiative             13 
my brother’s driveway and being greeted at the front door by my excited 
nieces and nephews. I imagine the excitement in my sister-in-law’s face as 
she pats my belly and welcomes me home. At 37 weeks into my pregnancy, I 
will for the first time experience what it’s like to share my excitement and my 
fears about parenthood with someone else. Someone who gets it. Someone 
who gets me. After sitting through pre-natal classes as the only woman there 
without a “support person” present, and sharing my complicated emotion-laden 
tears at the first images of my unborn child with nobody but the cool, distant 
ultrasound technician, I desperately longed for this. No more e-mails signed 
off with “xoxo”, no more lame emoticon shorthand for real emotional experi-
ences—now I get real hugs, real kisses, real laughs and frowns and tears and 
joys. No more aloneness. For the first time since becoming pregnant—maybe 
even for the first time in years—I am no longer alone.
Home is! Where: the heart is.
For me, in this moment, home is not a place, not a location. It is a feeling 
that is built from connection, love, history, shared pasts and intertwined futures. 
It is social. It is comfort. It is family. If it takes a village to raise a child, my 
village is Regina—not because it’s where I grew up, but because it’s where the 
people who raised me still live. No matter where life has taken me, or where it 
will lead me in future, these people always have been—and always will be—my 
home. Even if that home does not include my child’s father.
There is no substitute for home.


English

Going Home

Adjei, Jones K.

Tutu, Raymond A.

Ogunyankin, Grace A.

Cofie, Nicholas N.S.

Denominatonal Affiliation and the Risk of Pregnancy Loss Among Ghanian women

O'Neil, January Gill

 journal of the motherhood initiative             283 
I	tell	my	son	
that	the	best	poems
are	written	in	the	sand
and	washed	away	with	the	tide.
I	say,	the	moon	controls	the	waves,
uses	the	wind	to	rake	the	shore.
It	is	an	open	invitation	to	fill
the	world	with	words	
because	like	seashells	
you	can	never	have	too	many.
I	tell	him	to	wade	into	the	water.	
Start	a	conversation	with	
the	tiniest	grain	on	the	beach,
the	one	that	catches	his	eye	with	its	glint.
It	will	tell	him	everything	he	needs	to	know
about	this	moment,	about	how	to	stay	in	it
a	little	longer.	It	will	tell	him	how	to	be,	
for	an	instant,	the	thing	he	most	wants	
to	become.
A Mother’s Tale
january gill o’neil


A Mother's Tale

O'Hagan, Clare

book reviews
292             volume 2,  number 2
A book that adds to our knowledge and understanding of the issues and chal-
lenges facing parents and the strategies parents adopt in contemporary, high-
Parenting Out of Control:
Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times
Margaret K. Nelson.
New York: New York University Press, 2010.
Reviewed by Clare O’Hagan
of common struggles. Maternal empowerment, she argues, should not just 
be concerned with empowered parenting, it must also include attention to a 
mother’s agency “in the context of her own life” (13). “Why can we not simply 
demand that motherhood be made better for mothers themselves?” (15), she 
asks. O’Reilly argues that not only are mothers’ needs often ignored to the 
detriment of their ability to successfully fulfill their many responsibilities, 
thus leaving primary caregivers vulnerable to social and economic risk; moth-
ers also “remain disempowered despite 40 years of feminism” (25).
The anthology is divided into seven sections: Becoming a Mother; Maternal 
Identities; Maternal Advocacy; Maternal Activism; Violence, Militarism, War, 
and Peace; Social Change and Social Justice; and Writing, Researching, and 
Performing Motherhood. Each of the 81 chapters features a particular organi-
zation. While the diverse issues these groups have taken up vary from birth op-
tions to environmental and anti-military activism and issues of human rights, 
what connects them is their members’ passion, focus, and often their remark-
able audacity or courage. Although most organizations are currently active, a 
small number are included for their historical significance to contemporary 
maternal activism. Each individual chapter outlines the history, mandate, and 
activities of the organization, as well as some of the challenges it has faced and 
how these were addressed and overcome. In addition, each chapter articulates 
how the organization is linked to the broader motherhood movement.
Although a number of the organizations covered in this book were familiar 
to me, I learned something new from each chapter. Without exception, each 
chapter illustrated the interconnection of maternal practices and activism. 
This book, a masterfully and collectively written work that is both a signifi-
cant contribution to the field and a clarion call to action, will hold special 
appeal for readers interested in motherhood politics. It might be better suited 
to an electronic (and updatable) format, however. At 976 pages of small print, 
it is a massive, unwieldy tome.
book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             293 
ly individualized, neo-liberal society is always welcome. Margaret Nelson’s 
readable and accessible book promises a holistic examination of parenting in 
the United States amid social, cultural, and technological changes. The first 
part of the book is devoted to parenting styles, while the second part explores 
how parents engage with technology.
Nelson classifies her parent respondents into two groups based on their ed-
ucation: the professional middle class, those with a graduate degree or higher, 
and the middle and working class, those with an undergraduate degree or 
lower. Whether education alone is a clear enough indicator of class position is 
questionable, as is the inclusive grouping of working and middle class. While 
she acknowledges there are difficulties with this classification, Nelson ap-
plies it throughout the book in order to juxtapose two contrasting parenting 
styles, focusing in the main on professional middle class parents, whom she 
describes as “elite” parents.
“Parenting out of control” is the term Nelson applies to the parenting style 
of professional middle class parents, while “parenting with limits” is her term 
for the parenting style of working and middle class parents. “Parenting out of 
control,” according to Nelson, suggests the way “elite” parents “find themselves 
in a bind that is … of their own making. They may not want their children to 
grow up too fast, but they cannot and will not simply allow their children to 
be children” (82). These parents are intense nurturers of their children. Their 
style of parenting relies on communication, negotiation, flexibility, trust, and 
being endlessly and immediately available. They hoard advantages, are inten-
sively involved in their children’s education and activities—hence the popular 
term “helicopter parents.” On the other hand, “parenting with limits” is the 
style adopted by working and middle class parents who want their children to 
develop skills that will ensure self sufficiency. These parents are less interested 
in intimacy and engagement than they are in clear rules of authority.
Nelson finds that “elite” parents shun technological aids such as child loca-
tors, gps tracking devices, V-chips, and drug testing kits and rely instead on 
trust and negotiation. Working and middle class parents are more receptive 
to these technologies and their potential to set and maintain limits on their 
children. However, “among the elite, parental trust hardly exists … parents 
engage in a wide range of ‘sneaky’ behaviors ... to maintain the illusion of a 
trusting relationship” (161). “Parents out of control” deserve a more sympa-
thetic treatment than they receive in this book.
There are interesting and engaging descriptions and quotations in Nelson’s 
book, which reveal respondents’ attitudes to many aspects of parenting. It is 
clear from these descriptions that gender, ethnicity, family status, age, income, 
and family size also affect parenting styles, but these variables, as well as social 
and cultural factors, are given insufficient attention and analysis by Nelson.  


Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times

Allison, Juliann Emmons

Boys in the Woods: Motherhood, Identity, and Sustainability

Shaw, Lauren

Ecomothering: Creating and Nurturing a Sustainable World

Richey, Amanda Bethel

Birth(ing) Stories: Combining Poetic and Paradigmatic Approaches to Mothers' Counter Narratives

Weber, Clare

We Don't Need Your Help, We Need Your Support: Mexican Immigrant Mothering and Community Organizing

Yax-Fraser, Maria Josefa

We Compromise on a Daily Basis: The Choices and Processes of Cross-Culterual Mothering

Bohr, Yvonne

Whitfield, Natasha

Transnational Mothering in an Era of Globalization: Chinese-Canadian Immigrant Mothers' Decision-Making When Separating from Their Infants