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

English

Contributor Notes

Dobbs, Jennifer Kwon

Fetish Mothers

McCabe, Melanie

 journal of the motherhood initiative              171 
melanie mccabe
Your Oak
It sprouted your first spring with stubs of Kentucky Blue,
with breeze-blown seeds of zoysia, and grew faster 
than milkweed, but only at night, so that every morning
we woke to a new-made thing, a creation that had never
been in our yard before. Without agreeing on it, I took
no loppers to its bark, your father mowed carefully around
its grey spear and sticky buds, until it overtook the rusting
wire fence, the roof of the car and then the telephone line.
It changed from oak into green shade flickering, and shadowed
you on your swing, in your furrows and mountains of sand.
Now after nineteen years, I look up into its limbs that toss
and alter sky. The tip is a stone that parts a pond of blue;
the waver of wind through the leaves are ripples that widen
out from that stone. The first of the ripples is gone.
From a distance one sees how the tree grew at a tilt, not
heavenward, but leaning into the house, sidling up to 
its windows and rubbing its shimmer of jade or brown
over the bricks, the panes, the way a cat butts its head 
into a hand that will love it. At night the tree teases the glass;
it shivers and sighs on gusts of all that is left of a hurricane.
brought to you by COREView metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
provided by Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and...


Your Oak

Manohar, Namita N.

Busse-Cardenas, Erika

Valuing "Good" Motherhood in Migration: The Experiences of Indian Professional Wives in America and Peruvian Working-Class Wives Left Behind in Peru

Rudkowksi, Magdalena

Children's Thoughts and Feelings Regarding Nature in Two Types of Locations: Comparisons and Implications

Sanmiguel-Valderrama, Olga

Community Mothers and Flower Workers in Columbia: The Transnationalization of Social Reproduction and Production for the Global Market

O'Neil, January Gill

282             volume 2,  number 2
You Get Up
january gill o’neil
because	daylight	won’t	save	you
because	a	child’s	cry	reverberates	across
the	deepest	caverns	of	your	heart,	which	is
dark	and	stained	with	old,	rotted	love,
yet	you’ve	given	what’s	left	of	it	to	them.
	 	 	 How	can	you	not	get	up,	fix	breakfast,
take	out	trash,	pack	lunches,	brush	teeth,	wash	faces,
kiss	the	tops	of	their	heads	as	they	hug	you	goodbye
with	a	long,	firm	squeeze	that	says	Please	come	back.
So	there	you	sit	in	traffic	like	a	slug	on	a	highway	
thinking	we’re	fucked.
	 	 	 But	you	do	it.	You	do	it	
because	there’s	no	one	else,	not	any	more.
Even	in	this	starless	time,	soaked	in	the	syllables	
of	questions	without	answers,	more	separation	
than	agreement,	more	null	than	void,
despite	that	mocking	voice	in	your	head,	yours	or	his
—you	just	can’t	tell	anymore—which	says
you’ve	been	given	these	silver	linings	
who	call	you	mommy.
Get	up.	
brought to you by COREView metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
provided by Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and...


You Get Up

Takseva, Tatjana

book reviews
294             volume 2,  number 2
The five essays collected in Transformative Motherhood: On Giving and Get-
ting in a Consumer Culture straddle the disciplines of anthropology and wom-
en’s studies. Implied in the subtitle is the book’s focus on the rhetoric of the 
gift, gift giving and receiving in the context of non-normative mothering in 
the United States. The essayists explore the experiences of women whose re-
productive lives do not conform to dominant and consumer-oriented cultural 
standards when it comes to birth, motherhood, and mothering. These experi-
ences include adoption, surrogacy, foster parenting, giving birth to children 
with disabilities, and pregnancy loss. In each instance, drawing on extensive 
field-work and ethnographic analysis, the authors emphasize the various ways 
in which women adopt the rhetoric of the gift not only to creatively meet 
the challenges of their experiences, but also to critique consumer culture and 
redefine the conventional institution of motherhood, the mother/child re-
lationship, and the notion of children as products of biologically or legally 
determined kinship. The theoretical framework provided by the concept of 
“the gift” suits the subject matter of some essays better than others.
The collection opens with Judith Modell’s polemical essay “Freely Given: 
Open Adoption and the Rhetoric of the Gift,” in which she argues for open 
adoption over closed adoption. Modell seeks to restore the gift to its classi-
cal meaning of “social exchange,” and posits a “gift model” of adoption that 
removes it from the ideology of blood-based kinship. At the time she was 
writing, the forms of open adoption available in the United States were not 
contracted and legal. However, according to the Child Welfare Information 
Gateway of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, 
as of February 2009, 24 states have legal provisions for enforceable open 
adoption contact agreements. Given this significant change in legislation, the 
value of Modell’s essay lies primarily in its exploration of the rhetoric of the 
gift in relation to open adoption practices in general. Rather than “giving up” 
the child for adoption, which implies surrender, loss, and victimization, the 
rhetoric of the gift re-conceptualizes the act of the birthmother as a gift to 
the appreciative and known adoptive parents, and highlights the aspects of 
generosity and self-sacrifice involved in open adoption. It also implies that re-
cipients remain beholden to the gift giver, which in some cases of open adop-
Transformative Motherhood: 
On Giving and Getting in a Consumer Culture
Linda L. Layne, ed.
New York University Press, 1999. 
Reviewed by Tatjana Takševa
book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             295 
tion means a long-lasting relationship between the birthmother, her child, 
and the adoptive parents.
In Modell’s essay, the rhetoric of the gift paradoxically humanizes and 
socializes open adoption, but it also masks the financial side of adoption. 
Further, it ignores adoptive parents who choose closed adoption and who 
raise psychologically healthy children, or instances where ongoing contact 
and openness among the three parties involved may not, for various reasons, 
be in the best interest of the child. 
Helene Ragone’s essay, “The Gift of Life: Surrogate Motherhood, Gam-
ete Donation, and Construction of Altruism,” on the other hand, explores 
the paradox between gift giving and monetary compensation, as well as the 
gendered nature of the gift with respect to women involved in traditional 
surrogacy (where the surrogate mother contributes an ovum) and gestational 
surrogacy (where the surrogate mother only “gestates” a couple’s baby). Ra-
gone’s findings reveal that traditional surrogates are more likely than gesta-
tional surrogates to apply the metaphor of the gift to the embryos they carry. 
All surrogates, however, claim that the payment they receive is insufficient 
compensation for the service they provide and nine months of pregnancy. For 
Ragone, this claim illustrates the prevailing belief that “children are gifts and 
therefore priceless” (70), a view that gives rise to societal disapproval of finan-
cially motivated surrogates—a gendered response. In stark contrast, sperm 
donors, who routinely declare financial compensation as a primary motiva-
tion, do not face societal censure.
Danielle Wozniak’s essay, “Gifts and Burdens: The Social and Familial 
Context of Foster Mothering,” stands out for its clarity and cogency. Woz-
niak examines constructions of motherhood, mothering work, and kinship 
articulated by African American and Euro-American women who foster in 
the state of Connecticut. The rhetoric of the gift in women’s foster narratives 
subverts dominant notions of foster mothers and foster children as “nonmoth-
ers” and “failed children” who do not mirror patriarchal nuclear family life. 
Here, they become inherently valuable individuals with agency and control. 
Women who foster embrace a view of themselves as “gifted” mothers who 
have the talent and strength to foster children; at the same time, they form 
transformative relationships with, and a new conception of, foster children 
not as burdens but as gifts, “blessings,” and “joys” in themselves. Wozniak’s 
poignant, well-crafted essay shows that foster mothers conceptualize foster-
ing as a true gift-exchange in which mothers and children benefit mutually 
and equally.
The final two essays, “Does God Give Special Kids to Special Parents: Per-
sonhood and the Child with Disabilities as Gift and as Giver” by Gail Lands-
man, and “True Gifts from God: Motherhood, Sacrifice, and Enrichment in 
book reviews
296             volume 2,  number 2
the Case of Pregnancy Loss” by Linda Layne, deal with children who differ 
from the norm and thus challenge their mothers’ status. Both essays deploy 
the rhetoric of the gift, used here with explicit Christian overtones, to cri-
tique consumerism and self-blame. For Landsman, the idea that God “gives 
special children to special parents”—embraced by many parents of children 
with disabilities—is eventually displaced by the assertion that the child is the 
true giver of the gift, a notion that returns the value of the child to “normal.” 
In the final essay, Layne shows how bereaved mothers use the conceptual 
and symbolic power of the gift to deal with the moral problem pregnancy 
loss poses for women in a culture that often understands pregnancy in terms 
of capitalist production, and the delivery of a healthy child as the result of 
individual triumph.
Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict
of Modern Motherhood
Samatha Parent Walravens.
Seattle, wa: Coffeetown Press, 2011.
Reviewed by Dorsía Smith Silva
Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career, and the Conflict of Modern Motherhood con-
siders various paths of motherhood and whether mothers “can have it all” and 
at the same time. In many ways, the forty-seven contributors to this volume 
feel “torn” between caring for their children and the demands of their careers. 
Drawing on their personal experiences, they explore the guilt women face 
when they cannot find a balance between motherhood and work. As a result, 
the narratives emphasize that the “supermommy” complex is dead—the real-
ity of motherhood is that there may not be equilibrium between the worlds 
of parenting and career.
Most of the tales address this tension with great candour. Liesl Jurock in 
“Cupcake Crazy,” for example, is conflicted when she must miss her son’s 
birthday party at daycare to attend a business meeting. Likewise, Lindsey 
Mead in “A Foot in Two Worlds” is ambivalent about realigning her profes-
sional life to raise her children full time. Jurock and Mead note that their 
respective career decisions are multilayered and seek to reconcile personal as-
pirations, educational and financial investments, professional goals, parental 
responsibilities, and several other factors. Each admits that there is no easy or 
perfect solution for mothers.
The frankness of some essays is unnerving. In “Confessions of a Crazy 


Transformative Motherhood: On Giving and Getting in a Consumer Culture

Alban, Gillian M.E.

Depression in Mothers: Causes, Consequences and Treatment Alternatives, 2nd ed.

Knaak, Stephanie

book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative          309 
Twenty-First Century Motherhood studies “the impact of this new century on 
how motherhood is practiced and represented as experience, identity, policy, 
and agency” (3). The volume signals the coming-of-age of maternal scholar-
ship. Not only does it highlight the breadth of this growing discipline, it also 
manages to strengthen its theoretical core. Each of this book’s twenty-three 
articles seeks—in unique ways—to engage and advance ideas that now serve 
as the foundation of maternal scholarship, key concepts and theories devel-
oped by thinkers such as Patricia Hill Collins, Susan Douglas, Sharon Hays, 
Meredith Michaels, Adrienne Rich, and Sara Ruddick. 
The book is topical and covers a diverse range of subjects, including moth-
ering transgendered children, mothering on the internet, cross-racial gesta-
tional surrogacy, daycare policies, mothering in South Africa in the context 
of hiv/aids, whether men can and do mother, breastfeeding in Kenya, the 
Twenty-First Century Motherhood:
Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency
Andrea O’Reilly, ed. 
New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
Reviewed by Stephanie Knaak
“politically active” midwifery-supporting mothers who chose homebirths 
were historically seen as “irresponsible, bad mothers” who did not know what 
was best for themselves or their children, who participated in “risky” behav-
iour—likened to drug addiction or “driving a car without brakes” (84)—and 
were thus maligned by state and medical officials. Conversely, these women 
saw themselves as acting altruistically on behalf of their communities. They 
believed themselves to be “good mothers” who were educated about birthing 
methods and whose choice of homebirth was at once rational and safe.
As Craven notes in one of her concluding statements, “the fight for wom-
en’s access to reproductive rights, including midwifery, must be waged within 
the context of a broader social and reproductive justice perspective … not 
merely [as] individual claims to consumer rights” (147). Thus, while Pushing 
for Midwives focuses on the state of Virginia, it offers broad insight into the 
medicalization of reproduction, the “re-birth” of midwifery, and grassroots 
organizing among diverse populations that support midwifery. The book is a 
welcome and timely addition to mothering studies and the anthropology of 
reproduction.
book reviews
310          volume 2, mumber 1
The Joys of Motherhood, 2nd ed.
Buchi Emecheta. 
Harlow: Heinemann, 2008.
Reviewed by Maki Motapanyane
representation of motherhood in film and popular literature, reproductive 
technologies, parenting in the age of risk, maternal activism, and mothering 
at the intersection of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and gender. No-
tably absent from this wide-ranging coverage is the subject of medicalization 
and motherhood/mothering. Also, with a couple of exceptions, the essays in 
this collection focus primarily on issues pertaining to the practice and repre-
sentation of motherhood in Western societies. 
What most impresses me about this book is its cohesiveness, given the 
range of topics covered. Editor Andrea O’Reilly is responsible for the work’s 
overall structure: its thematic and theoretical coherence, sound organization, 
and helpful introduction. The volume’s four main sections—experience, iden-
tity, policy, and agency—activate the distinct (yet inherently overlapping and 
interconnected) dimensions of motherhood. Twenty-First Century Mother-
hood is a useful resource for those interested or involved in motherhood stud-
ies. It is also suitable for use in undergraduate courses on gender, sexuality, 
and family, race and ethnicity, communications, political economy, and glo-
balization.
First published in 1979, The Joys of Motherhood is a story of self-sacrifice and 
unrelenting toil that Buchi Emecheta depicts as definitive of African woman-
hood in early to mid-twentieth century Nigeria. The title is purposely ironic. 
In this eighteen chapter, second edition of the novel, readers are presented 
with a prototypical young Ibo woman, Nnu Ego, whose life of incessant work 
and suffering we follow to its unrewarding, lonely end. Set in Nigeria of the 
1940s and 1950s, the novel forwards a feminist reading of the conventions of 
African womanhood and ponders what losses “good women” suffer in meet-
ing these ascribed expectations. Emecheta controversially de-romanticizes 
the most esteemed illustration of African womanhood, the stoic mother. The 
picture painted for us is grim. We are first shown that African womanhood is 
defined by several factors: the marriage offer one is able to attract—including 
the quality of the husband, in part foretold by the bride price with which he 


Twenty-First Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency