Literary Mama Blog

PMS literary Journal

Deesha Philyaw, LM contributor, has a story in "PMS poemmemoirstory is a 140-page, perfect-bound, all-women's literary journal published annually by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. While we proudly publish the best work of the best women writers in the nation (i.e., Maxine Chernoff, Elaine Equi, Amy Gerstler, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Molly Peacock, Lucia Perillo, Sonia Sanchez, Ruth Stone, and Natasha Trethewey, among others) we also solicit a memoir for each issue written by a woman who may not be a writer, but who has experienced something of historic significance. Emily Lyons, the nurse who survived the 1998 New Woman All Women Birmingham clinic bombing by Eric Rudolph, wrote the first of these; women who experienced the World Trade Center on September 11th, the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, the war in Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina have also lent us their stories.

"A very special issue of all African American women writers guest edited by writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, PMS 8 features such figures as Elizabeth Alexander, Lucille Clifton, Edwidge Danticat, Nikky Finney, Nikki Giovanni, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Tayari Jones, Allison Joseph, Evie Shockley, Patricia Smith, and an interview by Remica L. Bingham with Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey. Each issue of PMS includes a memoir written by a woman who is not necessarily a writer but who has experienced something of historic import; PMS 8 features the memoir "From the Old Slave Shack" by the guest editor's mother, Trellie James Jeffers, Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at Talledega College."

Deesha's story is also featured in......

Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta! is a rough-and-tumble, sassy, kick-ass travelogue through the bumpy, action-packed world of GIRL. A world where women and girls know how to pick themselves up and brush themselves off. These are the clever girls. The funny girls. The girls who know there is no sin in being born one.

Teaching and Tae Kwon Do

Libby Gruner, LM's Children's Lit Book Group columnist, has written an article titled, "Teaching and Tae Kwon Do" in the March 21st issue of Inside Higher Ed. Libby, the self-described "least athletic person I know," joined her son's class after an invitation from his teacher. In the article, Libby says,

"Some days class felt like an anarchist miracle. How did we all, at our various levels, learn? And stay focused, and not get bored? I watched as Master Gibson walked beginners through chong ji, the first pattern; kids with higher belts moved right alongside, in patterned unison. He praised, he corrected, he encouraged. I began to wonder if I could apply the lessons to my own teaching."

Elrena Evans, LM's marketing and publicity manager, is giving a reading next Tuesday, March 4th, at Messiah College in PA. It's at 7:30 and is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.
Check out Elrena's story, When the Light was Still New, published by the Wild Rose Press.

When the daughter of a vineyard owner is betrothed to a man she cannot love, she pleads with her father to reconsider. But, in ancient Israel, age-old traditions are not dismissed lightly.
Can she escape the forced marriage? Will she be allowed to marry her true love? And what will her betrothed do when he finds out she is trying to get out of the arrangement?

When you’re a young woman living in a world of men’s traditions, sometimes all you can do is pray for a miracle.

Blog Day for Patry Francis

The call to participate in a blog day for Patry Francis attracted my attention because I'd just enjoyed reading her profile here on Literary Mama. To learn that she's too ill, right now, from cancer treatment to promote her book, The Liar's Diary, attracted my sympathy.

I don't know Francis, and I confess I haven't read her book, but having just started work on a publicity plan for my own book, I feel terrible at the thought of someone publishing a book and not being able to support it with readings and other events. It's like putting your kid on a school bus for the first day of kindergarten and saying, "Bye! Good luck! See you at the end of the year!"

So if my writing about her writing can help raise attention to her work, I'm happy to participate. Here's an excerpt from her profile that struck a chord with me:

I really admire writers who can get a lot of work done when their children are small. I was never one of them. For me, trying to understand who each child was and what they needed to grow and develop their own talents took all the creativity I had. There was no room for me to ponder the inner life of characters. Though I made many outlines and filled notebooks with ideas for the novels I hoped to write, nothing much was finished while there was a child under six in the house.

Writing, if it’s genuine and honest, is an act of supreme empathy. In writing a novel, I struggle to understand my characters, to accept their strengths and weaknesses, to allow them the freedom to be themselves (even when it doesn’t fit in with my plans), to celebrate them, forgive them and then to let them go. When you think of it, it’s very similar to the arc of parenting.

I also think my dedication to my work, both when I met with success and during the long years when I didn’t, has had a positive influence on my children. It’s taught them that if you truly love what you do, the process itself is always the greatest reward.

I have always loved my role as a mother, but I am also grateful to have something that is all my own. As my children are growing older and beginning to leave home, there is a sense of nostalgia and even loss, but that is counter-balanced by the joy I have in my other life: my work. Knowing that mom is busy and happy is also making the transition easier for the children. And, oh yes, one more thing: they are so proud of me.

And now go check out her blog, where she's got many more lovely reflections on writing. And then (don't forget!), check out her book, which sounds like a good creepy read for a winter's night.

Reading Recommendations from Regan McMahon!

Author Regan McMahon (Revolution in the Bleachers: How Parents Can Take Back Family Life in a World Gone Crazy Over Youth Sports) currently featured in Profiles (who also happens to be the deputy book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle) has some book recommendations for Literary Mama readers.

McMahon says: "I loved the book I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile. I reviewed it for the San Francisco Chronicle. Those co-authors have a new one coming out this spring about mothers' dirty little secrets. They manage to maintain a fun, supportive tone while presenting serious issues mothers grapple with, and, amazingly, avoid being judgmental. Everyone I know loved Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein, about her experiences with infertility, beast cancer, almost adoption and ultimate successful pregnancy. I haven't read it yet, though.

"As far as mothers who write in general, there's Berkeley writer Beth Lisick, author of the story collection Everybody Into the Pool and a new book [out now] called Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone; Nina Marie Martinez, author of the novel Caramba!; Yiyun Li, author of the story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers; and Micheline Aharonian Marcom, author of the novel The Daydreaming Boy, who also has a new book coming out in March called Draining the Sea."

We’d love to see some of these authors in upcoming Profiles. If you’d like to interview an upcoming or favorite mother-writer, we’re on the lookout for writers in our Profiles department, so give us a holler. Email the Profiles editors at lmprofiles AT literarymama DOT com.

The Mother of all Zines is Back!

Mamaphiles, the mama-zine compilation, announces the publication of its third issue. In this installment, twenty-five zine-writing mamas (including Literary Mama's Creative Nonfiction Co-Editor Kate Haas) and one papa take on the theme "Coming Home." Contributors range from zine veterans like Ariel Gore of Hip Mama to young mothers brand-new to zines. Packed with essays, poetry, artwork and photos, Mamaphiles is a comprehensive introduction to the vibrant mama zine community (or a good way to check in with old favorites). Ordering information at www.mamaphiles.com.

Short Reivew: Unsung Heroines

Annie Kassof, a single mother of two in Berkeley, sent us this short review of Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream by Ruth Sidel (University of California Press, 2006, $17.95)

Hunter College professor of sociology Ruth Sidel's newest book, Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream, is a testament to the strength and resiliency of single mothers. In a scholarly introduction full of facts and figures Sidel relates how single mothers, though growing in number, are still stereotyped and stigmatized in our society. Sidel interviewed about fifty single moms of varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds and many walks of life (none of whom became single parents by choice), and in subsequent chapters shares their stories, and this is where the book comes alive. These women, whose stories were transcribed from interviews and written in first person, range from religious moms for whom abortion was not an option, to upper-middle class women whose marriages dissolved; and many others as well. The women encompass a wide age range, although geographically they all live in the New York metropolitan area. Within each woman's narrative Sidel weaves academic or analytical commentary, such as noting "the damaging effects of the low economic status of black men and its impact [on families]…"

What struck me (a single mom myself) the most while reading these women's accounts is that although many of them speak of hardships—primarily emotional and financial—not one of them expresses shame or guilt for raising children without a full-time partner, even if that wasn't the original intent. Sidel's book is a poignant reminder for those of you who aren't single moms that while we may not necessarily think of ourselves as heroines, we are, by and large, doing our best to raise our kids under sometimes challenging and stressful circumstances, in some cases doing the work more successfully than two-parent families.

Miranda Issue #17

Announcing issue number seventeen of Miranda, CNF co-editor Kate
Haas's zine about motherhood. This issue features the essay "Waldorf
School Dropout" (gnomes and knitting don't make up for a hellish
teacher); a discussion about using your child's card to reserve extra
books at the library (clever strategem or unethical scam?); the
account of a maternal crush; and a Ma Ingalls-inspired paean to the
chest freezer (mm, pesto in January). Plus lots of book talk and
reviews, offbeat parental moments, and a recipe for parmesan chicken.
Ordering information at www.mirandazine.com.

The Daring Book For Girls

The Daring book for Girls by authors Andi Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz has received a lot of press since it hit the bookshelves this month.

In the Sunday New York Times Style section, Liesl Schillinger writes, "In the “Daring Book for Girls,” the authors mix inspiring tales of girls who made good (mostly familiar names like Joan of Arc, Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart) with a scrap bag of how-tos for girlish activities like making a daisy chain or playing hand-clap games like Miss Mary Mack and Say, Say Oh Playmate."

Last week, Judith Warner, author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" bloged about The Dangerous Book for Girls in "Seventies Something" she writes,

"This week came “The Daring Book for Girls,” the work of two almost-middle-aged writers whose goal, they told me, wasn’t just to complement the mega blockbuster “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” but also to offer an escape route out of the high-pressure, perfectionist, media-saturated and competitive world of girlhood in our time. The way they do it: by offering up an alternative kind of girl culture that looks and sounds a whole lot like … life in the 1970s."

Dispatches from Reviews

Literary Mama's Reviews desk is in the enviable position of receiving far more books than we can ever hope to review. While we are giddy that so many authors are writing books about mothering, and so many mother writers are writing books about, well, everything, we cannot review more than a handful of titles each year. We feel that many of these books deserve mention and we want to showcase some of these titles in a semi-regular Dispatches from Reviews feature on the Literary Mama blog.

In Writing Motherhood: Tapping into Your Creativity as a Mother and a Writer, author Lisa Garrigues posits that writing is not something we need to try to fit in around our mothering, but can, in fact, be an integral part of our mothering. Using the idea of a Mother's Notebook -- a sort of writer's journal/baby book/to do list -- she demonstrates how even the most mundane maternal tasks can become proseworthy events. She shows not only how the process of mothering can help your writing, but how the process of writing can help you be a better parent.

Over the summer, I devoured Gwendolen Gross's novel, The Other Mother. I adored this book and would love to see it get as much buzz as, say, Tom Perotta's Little Children. Billed as fictional account of the "Mommy Wars," the book is both richly layered and highly readable. On one one level, the book is about the divide between working mothers and those who remain at home, the guilt mother's feel whatever "choice" they make, and the fact that it is not really a choice at all. On another level, the book is an exploration of judgement, and the validity of the so-called truths on which we base our views of others and of ourselves. I loved it and will be writing more about it at some point.

Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood, edited by Cori Howard is available for pre-order (currently, it is available in Canada but will not be released in the US until February). This anthogy is particularly close to my heart as it includes my essay "Unhinged" (originally subtitled 'How the pressure to breastfeed made me lose my mind). Contributors include writers Joy Kogawa, Chandra Mayor, Christy Ann Conlin, Ami McKay (the LM review of her acclaimed novel The Birth House, can be found here), and Rachel Rose, as well as by award winning journalists, celebrities such as Carrie-Ann Moss and Chantal Kreviazuk, and other writer mothers. (When I saw the list of author names on the book's cover, an my name among them, I couldn't get that old Sesame Street Song "One of These Things is Not Like the Others" out of my head for about a week. I wouldn't so self-promoting if I weren't just so darned stunned about the whole thing.)

I have received a few other books across my desk that I have not had a chance to fully sink my teeth into but have piqued my interest.

Author Terra Trevor wrote her memoir, Pushing up the Sky, about the period following the adoption of their oldest daughter from Korea. Trevor waded into uncharted territory as not only was the adoption transracial (Trevor is American Indian and her husband is Caucasian), but they adopted an older child changing the birth order within their family (they had a birth daughter who now became the 'middle child' as well as a son, also adopted from Korea). As Trevor writes, "All at once, we discovered there would not be a honeymoon. Our amalgamated life together began immediately, and it hit us full force. Once again I had that same sense as when company or the cousins came for an overnight stay. When the children had overnight guests, the activity level peaked, and my emotions rode on air currents as I paced my way through the visit. Yet with company or cousins I knew it would eventually end, and once they left I could settle my children down and we'd go back to our regular lives. Only I couldn't because these were all my kids."

Deliver Me: True Confessions of Motherhood, edited by Laura Diamond, is a collection of personal essays, stories and poems collection from 20 members of Jack Grapes' L.A. Poets and Writers' Collective. A number of the writers are screenwriters who give the book a punchy, vibrant feel. Lisa Becker's poem Postpartum Depression was heartstopping in its honesty. I look forward to reading this book in more depth.

Finally, I wanted to draw attention to the fabulous work of Demeter Press, brainchild of The Association for Research on Mothering's inimitable Andrea O'Reilly. Demeter is the first book publisher focused specifically on the topic of motherhood/mothering. The recently released Maternal Theory: Essential Readings is a collection of 50 groundbreaking texts about mothering from Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, Sara Ruddick, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Daphne de Marneffe, Ariel Gore, Ann Crittenden, Judith Warner, and many others.

New Reading for Fans of the Bare-breasted Mama

Former Literary Mama columnist Gail Konop Baker is contributing to a grog (group blog) for debut authors, The Debutante Ball. Check out Gail's posts every Monday; her memoir, Cancer Is A Bitch: Reflections on Midlife, Mortality, Motherhood and Marriage, will be published in October by Da Capo Press.

Bloggers Needed!

MotherTalk is looking for mama bloggers who would like to review books that appeal to women and mothers who love to read. They're currently looking for people to review James Patterson's latest YA novel, Maximum Ride 3, as well as Susan O'Doherty's Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity ... with lots more great books coming!

Bloggers are paid for their reviews. If you'd like to sign up, go to http://mother-talk.com/wp/?page_id=5 to read the FAQs and subscribe.

Wanted: Mom Bloggers & Book Reviewers

Literary Mama Co-founder Andi Buchanan has spent the last several months building a new venture called MotherTalk, which connects publishers with bloggers who are willing to review books that appeal to women and mothers who love to read. Past blog tours have included books like Writing Motherhood, The Other Mother, and The Kids Book Club Book.

MotherTalk has lots of great books to review this summer and fall, so they're expanding their team of paid bloggers. If you'd like to sign up, go to http://mother-talk.com/wp/?page_id=5 to read the FAQs and subscribe.

"Mother's Day" Monday Night Blues, May 14th

Editors, contributors, and friends of LiteraryMama.com will be reading poetry, fiction, and memoir in honor of mothers at the East Bay Meeting House (coffee shop next to East End Brewery) this Monday night, May 14th, 8:00-9:00. Mama writers are welcome to join us to read their own work during the open mic that starts at 9:00. Sign up for the open mic begins at 7:30.

Write ahudock@sc.rr.com to contact Amy Hudock, Editor-in-Chief of the
award-winning on-line literary magazine LiteraryMama.com, profiled in
April's SKIRT! at
http://charleston.skirtmag.com/stories/040107/chs_s_20061101016.shtml

Announcing Book Club Works

Literary Mama contributor Cindy Dyson announces the launch of Book Club Works, a grassroots, adoption-style program that matches the thousands of book clubs across the country with the thousands of literacy teachers, activists and volunteers in order to bring the transforming power of books to the people who need it most.

For literacy workers Book Club Works means a steady supply of free, great books. It means knowing a group of readers cares about his or her work. Just a few of the lit- workers who will benefit: tribal teachers; disaster relief workers; homeless shelters; battered women’s shelters; detention centers; prisons; inner city programs.

For book clubs, BCW means having a way to share their love for and knowledge of books beyond their current circle of influence.

For more information, please visit bookclubworks.com.

Single Mom Seeking -- A REVIEW!

Single Mom Seeking: Playdates, Blind Dates and Other Dispatches from the Dating World
by Rachel Sarah
ISBN#1580051669
published by Seal Press

Review by Shari Maser

I’ve never been a single mother, and I haven’t been on a date in over seventeen years. So I was quite wary of Single Mom Seeking: Playdates, Blind Dates and Other Dispatches from the Dating World, even though a friend highly recommended it. I was sure that it would bore me because the subject matter was so far removed from my own reality, or (worse) I was afraid that I might feel voyeuristic, reading what amounts to someone else’s diary about her hot dates!

But my worries were unfounded. This was a page-turner, in a “wow, I know exactly what she’s talking about even though I never thought about it THAT way before” kind of way.

Sometimes her experiences resonated with my own... balancing the needs of a sick child against a scheduled commitment, racing to get my work done before my baby wakes up from her nap, balancing my need for intimate adult conversation with my child’s need to be with me, oozing breastmilk in public...

When her experiences didn’t resonate, they still captured my imagination. I found myself wondering, “What would I have done?” I was inspired to discuss her dilemmas with my husband, my friends, my sister. I was prompted to evaluate my own moral character and challenged to re-examine some of my “black-and-white” ideas about relationships.

I was so intrigued that I would have read this book from cover to cover...but whenever I put it down for a moment to brew some tea or use the bathroom, my husband swiped it, and I had to fight to get it back.

I asked Steve what a forty-something married man found so fascinating about the dating life of a single mother. His response — it’s fresh. Not a story he’s heard before. Funny, real, unpredictable, action-packed.

This is all true. It is fresh -- with a unique perspective on motherhood, dating, friendship, and family. It is definitely an original story, as Rachel Sarah gives us a play-by-play narrative about her dating life as a single, attachment-parenting, breastfeeding mother. It’s also funny, action-packed and unpredictable — full of life’s little moments, the kinds that nobody could possibly make up if they tried.

Single Mom Seeking is about relationships — between parents and children, between women and men, between service providers and recipients, among friends. Rachel Sarah, a natural storyteller with a strong sense of humor, entertains us with the “who said what to whom” details while she enriches us with her thoughtful evaluation of the elements that contribute to the construction and destruction of relationships. She makes us think, care, and laugh all at the same time. For me, reading can’t get any better than that!

Shari Maser is the attachment-parenting, home-educating mother of Alex and Erica. She is the author of Blessingways: A Guide to Mother-Centered Baby Showers - Celebrating Pregnancy, Birth, and Motherhood.

Fathers' Turn

At Literary Mama , we turn our attention to the stories of fathers once a year in June, but two fathers have recently released books worth checking out.

First, a former Literary Mama contributor, larry bauer, has come out with his first collection of poems. Titled, Health Insurance and Other Matters of Death and published by Foothills, larry's poems take a darker turn. Each poem in the collection is an evocative mini-story. In one of my favorites, "kelsie," larry uses the voice of a child and creative punctuation in a brilliant illustration that draws the reader to the center of this heartbreaking poem.

"will i ever have a home of my own
?again"
...
"will i ever live with my mommy
?again"
..
"will that man ever do those things to me
?again"

His poem, "golgotha," about the death of his brother, combines the lyrical with the realistic, for a stunning result, beginning with a surprising, dramatic opening stanza "i will always remember our last supper at taco johns" You can find a copy of the collection at the Foothills publishing website.

Elisha Cooper has just come out with a memoir about the first year of fatherhood. Crawling is a funny, highly accessible series of vignettes and musings on the early stages of fatherhood. In one particularly amusing moment, Cooper discusses his obsession with his wife's breasts: "I've always liked them. Now I like them. I'm looking at them more than at Elise. I'm aware that she doesn't appreciate my attention since now there are two people in the house fixated on when next she's going to take off her shirt."

For all that books like Operating Instructions and Waiting for Birdy have done to make memoirs of motherhood truer, funnier and more engaging, perhaps Crawling will do for memoirs of fatherhood.

Literary Mama Blog Tour: Mother Shock

We are kicking off the inaugural Literary Mama Blog Tour post, a feature whereby we will showcase some of our favorite places to visit online. We'll be starting things off by introducing you to some of our Editors' blogs.

Today, we head on over to Managing Editor (on hiatus) Andrea Buchanan's Mother Shock. Andi's blog is a mixture of a writer's blog, where she writes about her current projects, and a personal "mom blog," where she writes about her children and family life and the work of mothering (here she writes about sibling rivalry).

Currently she has been focusing on her anthology It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters and is writing a blog post about each essay in the book. In some posts she talks about how she first came to be introduced to an author's work. In other posts, she provides some of the essay's back story. She talks about why she was attracted to a particular piece of writing and wanted to include it in her book. Her blog gives interesting insight into the book writing, editing, publishing and marketing process from an author who has published four books.

Random Post Sample from Mother Shock:

I read her first book when it came out ten years ago, and I still remember the moment I finished it. It was the book that finally pushed me from merely aspiring to be a published writer to actually working towards becoming a published writer. Four years later, I had my first piece in a paid publication. Seven years later, I had a book published.

Too Much Housewife

Part of me really wants to read Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. There has been lots of interesting media coverage such as the review in the The New York Times, Anna Mundow's interview with the author in The Boston Globe, and Joan Walsh's review on Salon.com. Even as I type this, the book is sitting right there, atop the pile of "Must Read" books, it's flashy yellow jacket inviting me to dip beneath its covers if only so I can dismiss its contents as smoothly as this reviewer did.

But the truth is, I'm a little housewifed out. My formal review of Darla Shine's Happy Housewives was just published on Literary Mama's Reviews page. In order to write a fair review, I felt the need to read the book a couple of times which, to be frank, was a couple of times too many. And then there was the writing, rewriting, and editing of it all.

And now, I feel the need to read something -- anything -- that does not try to get me in touch with my inner need to vacuum.

Wolf at the Door

There has been a lot of chatter recently about Alison Wolf's Working Girls piece published in Prospect. So I was not at all surprised to see the article reprinted in the Toronto Star. The Star is renowned for its liberal point of view, as outlined in the famed Atkinson Principles to which the paper continues to adhere today. Its editors would know that an article about the negative repercussions of women in the workforce would be of interest to its readership, if only to give us the opportunity to say "Can you believe this article?" in an informed way.

What is interesting is that The Star chose to change the article's title from "Working Girls" to "Working Girls, Broken Society". And the little introduction provided by the editors reads as follows:

"While the benefits of career equality are axiomatic, its negative repercussions are wilfully ignored. In a contentious essay that is sparking fierce debate in Britain, a King's College professor argues that we must confront the losses to society when women choose work over family."

Choose work over family.

My, my.

The article continues on another page and the headline they have chosen is "The downside to equality" in bold one and a half inch font.

And the accompanying photo -- three bob-haired, power-suited, faceless business women, one with her fingers crossed behind her back as if she is lying.

It is a rather loaded way to present a contentious article, no?

The article itself argues how "women, at least in developed societies, have virtually no career or occupation barred to them." Now the author, Alison Wolf, does state right upfront that this has brought "enormous benefits." But she goes on to argue that there have been negative consequences including: "the death of sisterhood" or the division of women among class lines to a greater extent than in the past, the "erosion of "female altruism"" whereby women are not so willing to provide caregiving without remuneration, and how we "ignore -- sometimes [note: not always as The Star's preamble implies] wilfully -- the extent to which educated women bear disincentives to bear children."

Some of Wolf's arguments are compelling although I disagree with most of her conclusions. Interesting was her discussion of how the divide between rich and poor becomes more pronounced after bearing children, as the women with high-paying careers tend to return to work immediately after maternity leave (making 88% of her spouse's earnings over a lifetime) whereas women in lower paying jobs tend to work part time or leave the work force altogether (making as little as 34% of her spouse's income over a lifetime). I would have liked to have seen discussion of how state-subsidized daycare might alter this figure.

Some of her arguments were, in my opinion, just plain wrong. She distinguished between the minority of ambitious, well-educated women who have "careers" and the majority of women whose "families are top priority" as though ambition and motherhood are somehow mutually exclusive. Her discussion of how at "the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, some women can even be "married" to the state and live on benefits in a way no previous society could have imagined" feeds into the myth of the 'welfare moms' living the high life.

And her argument that society is worse off today because women are working instead of providing unpaid caregiving services out of the goodness of their hearts and a sense of religious duty is a little scary. She writes that the average amount of time "today's British citizen, male or female, devotes to volunteer activity is four minutes a day." Male or female. So it's not necessarily that women are doing too little volunteering these days; perhaps it's that men -- who have had the burden of being the sole income provider lifted from their shoulders and should therefore have ample capacity for altruistic endeavors -- are not doing enough. And she touches on the role of capitalism (which for me is the true bad guy) in all this but only in her discussion of how second wave feminism seemingly embraced capitalist values.

Her conclusion that "families remain central to the care of the old and sick, as well as raising the next generation, and yet our economy and society steer ever more educated women away from marriage or childbearing" is troubling since it places the erosion of our society's moral fabric squarely on the shoulders of women working outside the home. And though she is clear in stating that she has no desire to return to the "kitchen sink," her conclusions support the Good Housewife crowd that believes that there is something morally superior about staying at home with one's children.

Because if a left-leaning newspaper like The Star can read this piece and conclude that it is all about the "losses to society when women choose work over family," then, my god, what fuel is she giving to the conservatives who have been trying to prove this sort of thing all along.

Wifely Expectations

Another quick post as the children are restless. When I hear about writers making 'great sacrifices' for their art such as up holing up in cabins in the woods or hotels while they churn out their novels, I must say it irritates me a little; the real test is trying to write while rocking the baby in one arm and swatting the pre-schooler away from the Delete key with the other.

But something is bothering me and I think that it warrants mention even though I feel a little like a one-note drummer. It's the Housewife thing again. Like a wasp at a picnic, it's annoying and it won't go away. It also seems innocuous enough until it stings.

Yesterday, I had Dr. Phil on as I tried to decide which box to thaw out for dinner. His program was on Wifestyles and was a follow-up to an earlier show featuring a guest named Wayne who had suggested his spouse needed "wife lessons" because she was unable to follow his long list of requirements for wives.

I turned up the volume, because someone had just forwarded to me The Smoking Gun article on the crazy guy facing criminal charged in Iowa for attempting to kidnap his wife (among other things) who had drafted a very disturbing "Contract of Wifely Expectations".

"That must be the guy!" I thought as Phil reintroduced us to Grant and his 75-point list of requirements which included: "organizing closets; organizing hallway closet; keep the car clean; grocery shopping; cook efficiently; use the oven; use the stove; get rid of the stuff you don't use or need; sew; mend; wash; load and use the washing machine properly; basic routine maintenance on washer, dryer, oven, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, toaster; decorate windows; weekly and monthly cleaning; positioning of furniture; organize videos and DVDs; organize CDs; organize the linen; stock the linen; sanitize the bathrooms; cook Mexican food; get country dance lessons, Latin dance lessons, hip-hop dance lessons; and do preventative maintenance relating to common household items." Grant wanted his wife to dress sexier and had suggested that she wash his truck in her bathing suit and have breast augmentation surgery. He graded her cooking abilities. And not only did Grant feel that his wife should do all 75 things on his list (in addition to caring for their three children), but that all wives should be subjected to the same expectations: "those are just things I thought that a wife in general would need to know. . . . A wife staying at home [with children] ought to be able to handle those things." Scary.

But the really scary part was that Phil's guest was not the crazy Iowa guy. In fact, there was no mention of the crazy Iowa guy; the timing, so it seemed, was pure coincidence. Phil had done a follow-up show because "When Grant and Kelly were on the show, they ignited a huge debate over the topic of what defines a good wife." Debate? What exactly was there to debate?

There was, of course, the view that Grant was wrong. That expecting his partner to do all of the cooking and cleaning and dress up in sexy little numbers and take hip hop lessons after caring for their three children all day was ridiculous. But then a viewer named Amy voiced her opinion (as did thousands of others) that Grant's wife was indeed shirking her responsibilities and not doing her "job": "I think that what happens a lot of times in marriages is you come to an agreement of one person staying at home and one person taking on that responsibility, then the stay-at-home person, whether it's the mom or the dad, gets into the situation, realizes it's a lot harder than what they expected, and then doesn't want to be held accountable for their choices of being responsible in that role."

Ugh. And here we go again. That role. When exactly did the role of full-time, at-home caregiver morph into that of "housewife"? Why is it that there is an assumption that the person looking after the children is responsible for absolutely everything having to do with running a household? Sure, when grape juice gets spilled, it makes sense for the person there to wipe it up before it dries into a sticky mess. And, with a baby, laundry must be done. Frequently. But this notion that if someone is at home, everyone else in the family is "off the hook" when it comes to domestic activities seems so strange. And the expectation that the person at home will do all of this work with a smile while wearing sexy clothes is unsettling.

It is especially unsettling when we hear it from other women. On the original "wifestyles" show, one of the guests offered the following advice to "other stay-at-home moms": “Be the woman your husband wants you to be. Before he comes home: dress up, clean up, have a hot meal waiting for him when he gets home. Have a shoe basket by the door to keep the floor clean, so you don’t busy yourself mopping and sweeping, so you’re with him. If your husband reaches for you, grab tighter. If he kisses you, kiss longer. If your husband loves you, love him more. There’s nothing more a husband wants than a loving wife and a good meal.” Be a Total Woman. Be a Happy Housewife. Surrender to marriage. Biology is destiny.

On the face of it, perhaps it doesn't seem harmful. You are a woman. A mom. Look after the kids. Vacuum the drapes. Look pretty. You man doesn't want to come home to a mess at the end of a hard day. What's the big deal? And if everyone were smart and rational and reasonable and well-intentioned, perhaps it would be fine. But we live in a world with Grant and with the creepy Iowa guy. And women supporting -- trumpeting -- the message that motherhood somehow equals servitude isn't fine at all.

Bits and Pieces

Just a brief post from me. We are all cold-ridden over here and we were up until the wee hours in the E.R. with our 6 month old (he's fine). But I thought that a couple of things that happened this week were worth mention:

Judith Warner wrote a thoughtful op-ed piece in the New York Times on the work started by Betty Friedan. It's nice to see some conversation about mothering and feminism in the mainstream press.

Darla Shine (yes, I have finished my review and it will be posted soon) has revamped her website to make it more exclusionary. If you are a full-time working mother, she does not want you to sign up, or to buy her t-shirts, or to book passage on her Happy Housewives cruise. I know I'll have more to say about this, but I'm still slightly in shock.

And speaking of vacuuming, I read in Self Magazine (I know, I know) that the more time a woman under the age of 50 spends doing housework, the lower her income. The underlying study provides food for thought with respect to mothering and the second shift.

Fellow Warriors in The Mommy Wars

Thank you to Sandy at Imponderabilia of Actual Life for pointing me to this article by Mary Ann Roman which appeared in Parents Express magazine.

In her article, There are No Mommy Wars, she challenges the notion that there is a Mommy War being waged Out There pitting stay-at-home moms against those working outside the home (or breastfeeders against bottlefeeders or APers against Sleep Trainers or [Insert Parenting Choice Here.])

To readers of Literary Mama, this will, of course, not come as news. We know that there is no simple divide between mothers. We all love our children and try to find some sort of balance that allows us to mother our children and preserve our sanity. (And, yes, sometimes that means allowing them a steady diet of nothing but hot dog buns and ketchup.) But it is interesting to see a frank discussion of this issue in a very mainstream publication (Parents Express is one of those local freebie magazines you can pick up at the library or community center).

Roman interviews Miriam Peskowitz (author of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars) and Anjali Enjeti-Sydow (a co-leader of Mothers & More) among others. Again, it is nice to see Miriam's book and the work of Mothers and More (a group of SAHMs and WOHMs working together? How unexpected!) highlighted instead of that of one of the more devisive 'Mothering' authors we often see quoted in the mainstream press.

While the article works to dispels the notion that mothers are divided into two separate and distinct factions, it does talk about how many of us have experienced judgement of our mothering choices, sometimes even by other mothers.

But instead of attributing judging and feeling judged to some character flaw in women (Dr. Phil, the master of the Mom vs Mom show, always seems to like to talk about catfighting), the article points out society's role in the matter. "I believe that the root of all mother judgment is the lack of support that women receive as mothers, particularly new mothers," Enjeti-Sydow is quoted as saying. "If mothers had supportive social systems, whether that be family, friends, moms groups, understanding employers, and/or excellent child care, mothers would feel confident and secure in their decisions regarding their families, and would not feel the need to judge others."

"One thing we can do to solve this is to stop judging each other and ourselves," Peskowitz is quoted as saying. "We tend to divide from each other. Banding together to make a change is a good step. We tend to think of motherhood as a solitary issue, but to the extent in which we can talk together and act together, well, that will help all of us."

Author and Literary Mama Senior Editor Heidi Raykeil (Confessions of a Naughty Mommy), offered a perfect example of how a potential "mommy war" situation turned into something much more positive and powerful. Raykeil had written an article for Parenting Magazine that writer Betsy Hart criticized in her article (which also ran in the Chicago Sun-Times). Raykeil sent off an email to refute some of the points made and, frankly, did not expect to hear back. Hart emailed her back, respectfully offering a further explanation of her views. They had several subsequent email conversations and discovered that while they have very different opinions when it comes to the issue of behaviour management (the topic of Heidi's original article), they, in fact, have a lot in common. They are both writers. They are both mothers. They hold many of the same values dear.

In the end, they swapped copies of their books. Hart signed hers: "To Heidi, A fellow Warrior in these (always fun?) 'Parenting Wars.'"

My Inner Housewife: Shine Responds

In my last post I wrote that I had received a copy of Darla Shine's Happy Housewives book. Its arrival coincided with my discovery that Caitlin Flanagan also had penned a Housewife Chic book and the notion of a fashionable return to domesticity was making me feel rather cranky.

Both Darla Shine and a Darla Shine supporter left lengthy comments in response to my piece. I want to reserve my remarks about the book itself until I've finished it (I'm half way through) and have had a chance to pen a proper review (it is mainly a household tips book and seemingly not the usual Literary Mama Reviews fare but, given the political overtones of the book, is potentially worth some discussion). But, I did want to address a few of the points raised right away.

First, I have been accused of commenting on Shine's book without reading it. This simply is not true. In my earlier post, I commented on a newspaper article which refers to Shine's book. I did not comment on the book itself. How could I, without first having read it?

Second, I was informed that I misquoted Shine with respect to her comment on liberation and equality. Nope. It's right there on page 24. [Correction: Yep, Shine is right in this case. I quoted her as saying that our mothers had burdened us with liberation and quality (since I repeated the phrase over the next sentence, my meaning was clear but I apologize for my typo. Ooh, I hate being wrong!)]

Third, it seems that I am perceived as somehow anti-stay-at-home-mothers. Shine comments that "if we want to opt out of the fast track we should have that choice without being ridiculed by so called feminists such as you." This strikes me as funny (both funny peculiar and funny ha-ha). Yes, I consider myself a feminist. Absolutely. Yet, at the same time, I am not unlike Shine or the women she hopes to reach. Like Shine, I am at home with children (a two year old and a four month old). Like Shine, I also have a masters degree and left a six-figure job. Like Shine, I also try to carve out some time to write (I marvel at her productivity). And, like Shine, I do enjoy some things in the domestic sphere. I like to bake, I'm a compulsive organizer, I use the Flylady method of keeping my house somewhat tidy and I'm constantly Feng Shui-ing the furniture. And, like Shine, I disagree when people want to label the work of stay-at-home mothers as somehow 'less than' (see my blog entry about Linda Hirshman's article.)

But here is the difference. Shine seems to believe that we have a true choice when it comes to how we raise our families. We select whether to stay at home with the kids or not, to engage in domestic activities or not, to cook homemade meals or not as if from an all-you-can-eat buffet (well, to her credit she does acknowldge that some single mothers don't have the choice and seems to be trying to figure out a way to help them.)

And she therefore sees the "choice" to stay at home as somehow having more value than the "choice" to work, primarily because the "choice" seems to involve more sacrifice somehow (sacrifice defined in terms of forfeiting one's income). I quote from her book (page 19): "Just as in all families who make a choice for the mother to stay at home, we made our priorities. So, maybe you'll have to give something up. Maybe this year you won't buy the big-screen TV. Maybe you won't go to Bermuda. Maybe you'll have to downsize your home. Things might get tight. But isn't your baby worth it?"

Is it just me, or does that make anyone else want to scream? The 'I chose my child over a big-screen TV' smugness (dare I call it that) is just so out of alignment with my experience. None of my friends, none of the women I meet in the park, none of the women I am reading about seem to share this view. We all love our kids, we all struggle with work/life balance, we all try to do our best. None of us make decisions because we think that are babies are not "worth it."

Now Shine's defense to criticism about such statements seems to be twofold 1) she was joking and 2) she didn't intend for working moms to read this book. Well, she does seem to have a rather caustic sense of humor which she directs towards everyone and everything from women in the supermarket to her sister's phegmy tasting chicken Kiev and, it's true, she states right up front that if you are a full time working mom, you shouldn't read her book.

But I don't think that it is OK to make comments like this and then say "I was just kidding" or "I didn't mean for you to read that". It is not OK to imply that full time working mothers value their kids less. Not as a joke. Not in a little, nudge-wink, clubby, 'just between us girls,' kind of way.

This type of polarizing comment is always tricky. Because what might be intended as a jokey, off the cuff, biting remark can work its way into the wider discussion of mothering. And then readers like Debra, one of her supporters who also commented on my blog post, can honestly believe that they are supportive of all mothering decisions and yet at the same time believe that Shine is "empowering those of us who have made the choice to value our families over the never-ending climb up the corporate ladder." And it is precisely this, not vacuuming or not vacuuming the drapes, that causes me so much anxiety. It's the we "made the choice to value our families." As if maternal love is somehow entwined with one's work situation, or cake-making abilities. As if it is something that can be measured, and judged. And suddenly mothers are policing each other instead of banding together to say, 'we all value our families, we are all trying to do the best we can in a family unfriendly society, and, you know, we're all getting a raw deal." Shine does have some great suggestions for improving the lot of the stay-at-home-mom. I simply wish that she could discuss them in a way that was more inclusive of all mothers.

I am also uncomfortable with how Shine seems to use the terms housewife and stay at home mother interchangeably. I just don't see how one mothers one's children has anything to do with mastery of domestic arts. Shine writes (page 100) that she ties little bows around her napkins, bakes biscuits in the shape of bunnies, and ensures her pancakes are equally sized because she thinks "a little extra fussing is a little extra love." Perhaps that is how Shine shows her love for her family. Others might show it by working two jobs or driving their kids to the hockey rink at dawn or by teaching their children to be accepting of others and non-judgemental. We all have different mothering styles and I don't think that the decision to make or not make every craft and recipe from the latest issue of Good Housekeeping has anything to do with one's love for one's children.

Shine accuses me of trying to start up a mommy war but it is the devisiveness found within her book which troubles me. If she truly wants to help women, if she truly wants to make things better for moms and for families, then I just don't see how she plans to go about doing it by alientating so many.

Now, Shine is a very shrewd writer/media personality. Even her blog comments (she has left similar ones on other blogs) seem to be part of some sort of a guerrilla marketing campaign to stir up interest in her book. I respect her business savvy. Invoking the mommy wars and injecting a layer of controversy certainly is a way to distinguish her (so far) otherwise unremarkable book from a number of the other domestic "how to" texts.

But I think that there could be a much deeper cost if she starts to encourage women to make the political personal, to stop trying to change the system, and to embrace it, almost competitively, warts and all.

Perhaps the book has a surprise ending. Perhaps it will reach conclusions which will make me a convert to her ten step guide to maternal bliss.

I'll let you know.

My Happy Inner Housewife

Well, it's been a banner week in my life. First, Darla Shine's Happy Housewives appeared on my doorstep. My favorite line so far is "Our mothers have no idea how they have burdened us with liberation and equality." Liberation. Equality. Yep, that's a real drag.

Then, I learned here and here that Caitlin Flanagan's new book To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is coming out in April. Here is a little quote from the publicity material which warmed my heart "On Work/Life Balance...: If you want to make an upper-middle-class woman squeal in indignation, tell her she can’t have something. If she works she can’t have as deep and connected a relationship with her child as she would if she stayed home and raised him. She can’t have the glamour and respect conferred on career women if she chooses instead to spend her days at “Mommy
and Me” classes. She can’t have both things."

Oh dear. Well, there's no use in trying to change things then, so that we can find fulfilling work and still have time to spend with our children. I guess there is nothing to do but squeal.

Oh, and vacuum the drapes which, according to Shine, I'm supposed to be doing once a month.

The "Elite" Talk Back: Linda Hirshman and Miriam Peskowitz Respond

One of the more provocative responses to yesterday's post, "The 'Elite' Talk Back" was by the original article's author Linda Hirshman. When I saw the comment initially, I steeled myself for criticism. Instead, my points were ignored (dismissal perhaps being the ultimate form of criticism) and Hirshman instead wrote an oddly personal response to The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother's Miriam Peskowitz, whose Playground Revolution blog entry I had referenced.

I'll urge you to read the comment in its entirety. Basically, it boils down to this. Hirshman and Peskowitz, both feminists, both authors, have different definitions of what is fodder for feminist analysis, as was revealed in Hirshman's interview with Peskowitz for the original article. Hirshman believes that the family must be redefined and "that perpetuating hierarchy with women on the bottom by psychological, ideological, economic or any other means is immoral whether it occurs in the family or in the pages of the New York Times." Peskowitz doesn't agree, believing that the family structure is rather more personal and complex and difficult to categorize as patently feminist or not. And, unlike Hirshman, she believes that there is still work to be done in making the workplace and society more family-friendly. Hirshman writes that she decided not to use any of the Peskowitz interview in her article "because I am trying to open a discussion of the justice of the traditional gendered family". Peskowitz's views did support her arguments.

But, surprisingly, Hirshman does not go on to offer evidence in support of her hypothesis that the family ought not to be immune from feminist criticism. She does not offer why she believes Times brides are a good indicator of feminism at work. She does not say why she did not challenge the patriarchal notions of money and power. She does not offer additional evidence to show how government and business are supportive of mothers and how the only real problem lies with us.

Instead of engaging in real debate, she simply simply dismisses Peskowitz's views: "So I don't blog on about my roofer or my morning sickness or whatever qualifies as sincere feminism in the weird space the internet creates." And goes on to blame Peskowitz herself for her side-tracked career.

Literary Mama asked Miriam Peskowitz if she'd like to respond to Hirshman's comment and here is her emailed response:

Wow. How does an author/blogger/mom even respond to a personal attack like that? The post is clear evidence that writing about the Mommy Wars and about the judgment that's dished out to all mothers doesn't exempt one from taking it on the chin. Ouch.

Yes, once upon a time, I had a low-paying, high-prestige full-time job. Unfortunately, it didn't come with onsite childcare, paid maternity leave, or other supports for working parents. Not wanting to totally ditch my career, I took an unpaid leave of absence. I found part time work elsewhere. Then I quit the first job. My story of career sacrifice is shared by moms throughout America. 25% of us are out of the paid workplace, 37% work part time. Some feminists can only see us as disappointments. I disagree. Instead of judging us, why don't you look at where the problem is: The problem is not that smart women make bad marriage decisions. At core it's about how the workplace hasn't changed to support family life. Not nearly enough.

If that makes me a bad feminist, well, that's okay. Call me names. I've got better things to think about, like getting moms and dads across our nation, and in every neighborhood and economic class, to start thinking about how the frustrations our families face are structural, how they're not about our own individual failures but about a lack of paid family leave, fair wages for women and mothers, realistic work hours, reliable and affordable childcare, or chances to get back into the workplace after some time out. And that's just a start.

I'd like more of us to feel comfortable speaking out, and imagining what real change for mothers, fathers and families might look like. I'd like us to call our politicians, write to our newspapers, pressure our corporations, in short, use any of the usual tactics available to us as citizens in a democracy. I'd call that keeping our eyes on the prize. We need real social change for family life, and we need it now.

In my book The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother (Seal Press, 2005), I tried to write about all of us. About white women and black women. About a few affluent moms, and a few welfare and former-welfare moms. About ordinary middle-class school teachers. About daycare workers. About women who are honestly trying to make a go of it in a society that doesn't help. About women and families who are kept absent from our national media, which much prefers to focus on the affluent, as if only the rich matter. I stand by my comments, especially as they're echoed throughout the blogosphere. We're all having a time of it out here; there are few good family choices for mothers or for fathers. Our national media insists that only the upper economic sliver of families matters. That's a travesty.

Well, it's late, and I am a tired and very pregnant woman itching to get to bed. But I can't end without defending the mom-and-dad Internet, where we real moms have morning sickness, sick kids, and other frustrations. Real dads sometimes quit their jobs and stay home to care for kids. We do boring things like fold laundry and cook dinner, day in and day out, as do our partners and spouses. We work, earn a living, feed our spirits, and find ways to get our kids to sleep through the night. Sometimes we have homes that need new roofs, and yes, we write about all of it.

On our blogs we write about the work that fills our days. It may read like boring trivia, but it's the stuff of everyday life, and it matters. We have joys and regrets, happiness and anger. These lives don't come with fancy names or titles, but they're honest and they're real. We've created an interesting and connected world. We've ended the awful isolation that can affect so many moms and dads. We're here, we're real, and we come from all walks of life. I'm sorry to hear us described by Hirshman as "weird."

To end, I'll assume that most readers of Linda Hirshman's post will realize the odd way my words were out of context, and leave it at that. Since I was never asked permission to tape record our telephone interview, readers should know that they are not reading my transcribed words but an oddly remembered version of a conversation.

Miriam Peskowitz

Author, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother

www.playgroundrevolution.com

www.hylands.com/forums/

I'll say it again: Amen to that.

The "Elite" Talk Back

In Homeward Bound, published in The American Prospect, Linda Hirshman makes the argument that, among America's "elite" women, feminism has, essentially, failed. Her proof -- "Half of the wealthiest, most-privileged, best-educated females in the country stay home with their babies rather than work in the market economy."

She sets out to prove that, while the feminist movement altered laws and government and even corporations (which, frankly, is news to me), it really did nothing to redefine the patriarchal notion of family whereby women remain the primary caregivers. Hirshman, a self-described feminist, set out to prove her thesis through interviews with 41 brides featured in the New York Times Sunday Styles section in 1996 (she got this idea from an episode of Sex and the City, of all places) -- women who were the very definition of the "elite" for whom feminism had failed.

She offers some seemingly sound data to show that even though these women were being accepted into professional programs and hired at the same rate as their male counterparts, they were leaving the workforce in anticipation of having children. But of course this is not new information.

Where Hirshman begins to shake things up, is in her refusal to attribute this "opt-out" rate to a male-oriented society, to a workplace that is "discriminatory and hostile to family life", to a systemic problem with work itself. Instead, she seems to blame the women themselves. "Women must take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions," she writes. She opines, "if half or more of feminism's heirs (85 percent of the women in my Times sample), are not working seriously [read: full time for high pay], it's because feminism wasn't radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn't change men, and, more importantly, it didn't fundamentally change how women related to men."

"Liberal" feminists are also to blame for not being harsher critics of women who continue to take the primary role in childrearing, be it full time or on the "second shift":

liberal feminists abandoned the judgmental starting point of the movement in favor of offering women "choices." The choice talk spilled over from people trying to avoid saying "abortion," and it provided an irresistible solution to feminists trying to duck the mommy wars. A woman could work, stay home, have 10 children or one, marry or stay single. It all counted as "feminist" as long as she chose it.

Hirshfield argues that the whole concept of choice, while an easier sell than radical feminism, is wrong. Women cannot choose to take on traditional, underpaid, undervalued domestic work and not undermine feminism: "Like the right to work and the right to vote, the right to have a flourishing life that includes but is not limited to family cannot be addressed with language of choice."

She lays out three rules needed for women to live by truly feminist principals: "Prepare yourself to qualify for good work, treat work seriously, and don't put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry." She then goes on to say, what is in essence, avoid the liberal arts programs, pick the job that pays the best (forget altruism) and stick with it and if you want to marry and have kids, best you "marry down" so you retain the power in the marriage.

Gosh. It's all so very bleak. The only way for women to be feminist is to be a market-driven, work-oriented and treat marriage as economic decision -- the Feminism-as-Gordon-Gekko philosphy, I guess.

The author makes a number of assumptions which are just plain troubling. The first assumption is that brides featured in the style section of the Times are the best candidates for feminist living. I would make the assertion that this is almost patently not the case. If the style section in the Times is anything like those in the Canadian papers, the brides featured are not representative of the average upper-class, educated woman for whom feminism should be most alive. Rather, they are representative of brides who are accutely aware of social status (or whose parents or fiances are -- they tend to have the "I'm mortified" faces in the photo). And in my book, people concerned about "fitting into" and "keeping up with" society are not really the drivers of social change.

She also makes this assumption: "The best way to treat work seriously is to find the money. Money is the marker of success in a market economy; it usually accompanies power, and it enables the bearer to wield power, including within the family." Nowhere does she challenge the notion of success or power. So a woman who chooses to work in not-for-profit or stay at home is less successful, less powerful, than a woman who runs a Fortune 500 company. It is true that in today's society, her work goes unmeasured. But perhaps instead of pandering to a patriarchal definition of success, we, as feminists, need to redefine it. I just do not understand why only a woman succeeding at a man's game (by making the money, picking the "right" spouse) is deemed to be a feminist. Can a woman not be feminist by seeking to shatter the patriarchal money-equals-success-equals-power paradigm.

I almost did not want to give the piece any more airtime. But I hate it when one of these articles lands in my inbox without some accompanying challenge. Because as an MBA, ex-Bay Street (Wall Street Lite) now 'just raisin' babies' mom, I see myself in pieces of the article. And I am annoyed that things aren't better for me and for all women. And for a brief second, I wonder, "my god, is this true? Am I failing the movement? Will my choices in some way negatively affect my daughter (and my son) at some point down the road?"

And in a time when women -- mothers -- so need to collaborate and cooperate, I hate to see yet another article which seeks to divide. Usually I can dismiss these pieces as conservative propoganda but this wolf was dressed in feminist clothing.

I think that Miriam Peskowitz says it best "She's trying to find a book contract for this, god help us all. And she's a scholar too, she should know better about how to use evidence. Enough, enough, enough. We've got a whole country out here trying to make ends meet, and this is the crap we get, again and again and again."

Amen to that.

Housewife Chic

The National Post (a Canadian national daily) had an article in last weekend's paper by Anne Kingston (who is one of the few Post writers who does not make my teeth itch) entitled The latest motherhood advice is not about raising children, and subtitled The only acceptable stay-at-home moms are yummy. Seeing the word motherhood in the title, I immediately wondered, as Daphne de Marneffe calls it, 'Is it for me or against me?' When my eyes skimmed over Danielle Crittenden's name, I feared the worst.

The article starts out with a brief plug for James Lileks's Mommy Knows Worst book, which pokes fun at parenting advice of the '40s and '50s (such as the recommendation to baste your babies in oil before putting them out in the sun.) Kingston points out that although such advice seems silly in our day and age, modern parents are not immune to advice givers such as the "those stern, boxy British Nannies...browbeating American parents about the need for discipline."

Then she writes: "What distinguishes motherhood propaganda today, however, is that it's most virulent strain is directed not at child-raising but mother-raising -- as in how to self-actualize as a Yummy Mummy." The Post, like many of their mainstream media counterparts, have featured a number of Yummy Mummy type articles such as this one which seem to treat mothers primarily as a self-indulgent consumer group, so I was interested to see what Kingston had to say on the topic.

Kingston discusses a Sunday Telegraph article (reprinted in the Post) by Danielle Crittenden which espouses the new Housewife Chic where "the old-fashioned, full-time mother at home is being celebrated -- as fashion icon, as status symbol, as sex symbol." Apparently Crittenden is enamoured with mothers such as Darla Shine who embrace the notion of the Happy Housewife without any sense of irony. (For a truly hair-raising experience, read some of the press releases for the Shine-approved Total 180 magazine. I was particularly fond of the one entitled: "Girlfriend Media Group and Darla Shine Join Together to Demand Respect for Women who Choose their Children Over their Career" which offers this gem:

It's the new feminism.... We are capable, educated women, but we don't want to break the glass ceiling anymore. We are reinventing ourselves and molding out lives around our children's schedules.

Charming.)

Kingston challenges Crittenden's notion that Housewife Chic is a new thing and also debunks her assertion that highly paid, educated women are opting out of the workforce as part of this trend (a slowing economy, not fashion, is taking women out of the workforce in slightly higher numbers than in previous years). She also sees this narrow view of motherhood as unpalatable for, in addition to the pressure of being fashionably Yummy, "there's also the indignity of having the back-breaking work and self-sacrifice involved in motherhood minimized as a "lifestyle" choice designed for self-fulfilment."

Hear hear.

A Metafiltered Take on Mothering

I'm nervous to be blogging here. Not to be blogging -- I write unabashedly over on my personal blog MUBAR (Mothered Up Beyond All Recognition). But to be blogging here. At Literary Mama. It's a bit scary for me.

Because there is a new group of readers -- ones who might find my fast and loose treatment of the semicolon, or my overuse of exclamation points (and italics) unsettling. Sophisticated readers seeking out literary mamas. Mamas who have read something slightly more pithy that Horton Hatches the Egg (although truly, I think that even that text warrants further discussion. Why is Maysie considered so lazy? She just wanted someone to sit on the egg while she took some time for herself. Is that so bad? Does she relinquish parental rights simply based on the need for some alone time?)

But, in spite of my trepidation, I'll wade in.

Andrea Buchanan turned me onto a discussion on Ask MetaFilter generated by this initial post.

My boss just had a baby. It's a small company. She's bringing it to work everyday. How do I tell her that this is bad?

Call me old fashioned, but an infant should not be at work. I'm having a hard time dealing with a crying baby in my office, as well as someone changing diapers and also having my boss closing her door and breastfeeding while I'm trying to work. I need to somehow tell her that I have a big problem with this and how it is reflected on our companies' professionalism but I don't want to hurt her feelings, or worst even, look like a big grump. Got any pointers? I'm having a difficult time with this one.

While online forums (like talk radio) tend to attract commenters with extreme options, and are thus not necessarily representative of the population as a whole, the debate generated by this post raises some interesting issues.

What starts out as a fairly specific question about one particular situation quickly turns into a general debate on the appropriateness of bringing young children to work, presumably in lieu of other childcare options. After reading the first several comments, I quickly came to the conclusion that the issue had two camps.

There is the camp which believes that parenting is a private/domestic issue and the burden should fall squarely on the shoulders of the parent (read: mother); I'll refer to them as the "bad camp" since I might as well get my personal bias out into the open. A commenter using the name Agregoli sums up their beliefs:

I don't want kids, and I won't ever have them. I am not responsible for someone else's kids simply because they made a choice to have them. I hate that "it takes a village" crap. I made a conscious choice, and so did they. I don't have to share the burden of their children.

Speranza, also in the "bad camp," agrees:

You are absolutely not old-fashioned (or a "crank" about the breastfeeding). No one should have to put up with babies in the workplace unless you actually work with babies. I don't think I'd be terribly tactful in this case, because some parents really need a smack in the head with a clue-by-four to make them realise that not everyone wants to be around their kid as much as they do.

As a mother of two, I, of course, identify with the "good camp" filled with people like Occiblu, who writes, "it's nice when people recognize that raising the next generation of children -- your soon-to-be lawyers and teachers and doctors and judges and legislators -- isn't solely women's reponsibility, and maybe it's time we start recognizing that." It's easy fo me to say, yes -- right on -- amen.

But then things begin to become less straightforward. Tom g, who identifies himself as speaking from a "progressive/feminist" point of view, challenges the 'babies do not belong at work' point of view articulated by Agregoli and Speranza:

There are very few people who have the opportunity to do what is best for their child. I am nervous that you are going to ruin it for your boss and her child.... There are some great noise-cancelling headphones available for sensitive types like you. This way, your bosses baby can be where she is supposed to be - with her mommy.

Now wait a minute... Progressive? Feminist? Yes, tom g is from Massachusetts, is the parent to a four month old and is married to a La Leche League leader. But how is believing that a baby is "supposed to be...with her mommy" a feminist belief?

Surprisingly, it is Speranza from the "bad camp" who challenges tom g:

I feel that you are speaking from an extremely unfeminist point of view as you stated initially that babies should be with their mothers all the time (no mention of fathers) and you seemed to imply that it was more important for anon's boss to be a mother than to be anything else (like a good boss). As a feminist, I find it difficult to see what's feminist or progressive about suggesting that mothers bear 100% of parenting duties.

So tom g, who belives that children should be with their mothers is a feminist. Speranza also identifies him/herself as a feminist, in spite of writing:

Anon isn't being "sensitive" here, and I don't see why s/he should be the one to make compromises when it's the boss who's made the decision to juggle work and a kid. If it's so important for the baby to be with mommy, then mommy should've stayed home instead of coming back to work with the child so she can be a mediocre mother (is a place of work/office environment the best place for a baby?) and a shitty boss.

Well, now I don't know what to think.

There seems to be confusion when it comes to the idea of defining feminist parenting. One of the commenters refers to an article in Mothering magazine entitled "Babies in the Boardroom." The article interviews five mothers who bring their children to work with them in what appears to be an ultimate feminist utopia, where work colleagues act as the "village" raising the children, and breastfeeding during a meeting is common.

And yet the article does not feel partucularly "feminist" to me. The article's author writes: "While bringing your baby to work has an impact on everyone involved, it is primarily a way for a mother to respond to her natural instincts. Money can still be coming in, and baby can spend the workday near mom--in a sling or another close-to-mom setup." Language like "natural instincts" seems dangerous to me because a) it is alienating to women who do not want to spend the workday with their children (are their instincts "unnatural?") and b) by assuming that mothers are biologically hardwired to care for their children, it uncomfortably attaches childcare responsibility to gender, giving credence to the 'not my child, not my problem' argument.

An interview with one of the working mothers further compounds this point of view:

Bringing Sarah to the shop was her response to starting a family while building up her businesses. But Cath's situation is equally an expression of her ideas on mothering. She isn't comfortable with someone else serving as her substitute. "I want to be the one teaching Sarah the right behavior and providing for her. I couldn't hand her off."

Right. Couldn't "hand her off" like other mums do, being the implication. And in rolls the judgement.

This language plays into the hands of those who like to believe in the polarization of mothers and the "mommy wars," where women choose a side based on their so-called parenting choices. We choose to work or choose to stay home or choose to bring the kids to the office or choose to "hand them off". But, as most mothers will attest, it never really feels like a true choice. To me, it feels more like making the best out of a bad situation, in a society which is decidedly mother unfriendly. As one commenter points out, there isn't the degree of choice in this matter that some people believe: "In the states, most maternity leave runs out after 12 weeks, but plenty of childcare facilities won't take babies till they're at least 6 months. The options for what to do in the interim are extremely narrow. Taking your child to work is one of them."

I often discuss the whole mothering/working issue with like-minded mother friends. And I leave those conversations feeling refreshed and hopeful. I'm sure that we are all on the same page in believing that things need to change. We need to lobby government and big business for more accommodation of mothers in the workplace, for recognition of the work women do at home, for true choices. But I thought that we were well down the path of knowing what work needed to be done.

Getting a glimpse of what a broader audience, including self-proclaimed feminists, thinks about this issue make me much less certain.

New Poetry Chapbook from Ona Gritz

LiteraryMama contributor Ona Gritz has a new chapbook of poems available!

Ona has shared the truth about mothering her son with Literary Mama readers in poems such as The Impatient Mother and Shared Custody. Now she turns her honest eye to explore the experience of loss and daughterhood. In Left Standing, a chapbook from Finishing Line Press' New Women's Voices Series, Ona uses her gift for creating evocative images to bring the reader along on a journey of loss and renewal.

If you are in or around NYC, you can catch Ona reading from Left Standing at Morans, 501 Garden Street in Hoboken, NJ, on September 19th at 8 p.m. Also featured that evening is John Amen, editor of The Pedestal Magazine.

You'll have a second chance to hear Ona reading on September 23rd at 8 p.m. at Symposia Community Bookstore, 510 Washington Street in Hoboken, where she will read with poet and memoirist, Dan Simpson.

If you can't make it to one of the readings, then don't miss the opportunity to read her newest work in Left Standing. The book is available online through Finishing Line Press or by sending $12.00 check or money order to Finishing Line Press, PO Box 1626, Georgetown, KY 40324. You'll be glad you took this journey along with Ona.

Barbara Crooker's New Book of Poems

Barbara Crooker, a mother-poet and former Literary Mama contributor, has a new book out.

Barbara Crooker, a mother-poet and former Literary Mama contributor, has a new book out. Radiance won the Word Press First Book Award and is now available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. (ISBN 1932339914)

Take a sneak peak of some of her new poems on her website.

Barbara's poems were among the first submissions that I received as poetry editor of Literary Mama, and I think I will always remember how her words moved me to tears as I sat in a coffee shop reading about her "poem-child" starting kindergarten in The Blue Snake Lies Curled in my Bowl like Oatmeal. While I sat there reading Barbara's poems, two women sat at the table next to me feeding bits of cinnamon raisin bagels to their children. I wanted to interrupt their morning coffee and pass the poem over to them. Instead, I selected it for publication on Literary Mama and got to share it with many many mothers. Now more of her poems are available for public consumption. Go Barbara! Keep 'em coming.

Reading List: What do LM editors like to read?

Every so often, I get an email from a reader asking me what I like to read when I'm not writing. Right now I'm in the midst of reading submissions for It's a Girl and getting the Literary Mama anthology ready to go, so I'm not doing much reading for pleasure at the moment. But I have read some great books recently, and I thought I'd list them here. Hopefully some other LM editors will chime in with some recent favorite books, too. Here are some of my favorites from the past six months of reading:

• The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
• The Know-it-All by AJ Jacobs
• The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank
• Inamorata by Joseph Gangemi
and the best book I've read in a really long time:
• You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon
I absolutely loved this book. It has incredible writing, a compelling story, and Chaon writes so well about the complicated relationship between a damaged mother and a damaged son, and the way families work or don't work.

I'd love to hear what others are reading, so, please, feel free to share with the class!

Reading Native Mother Writing

Writers tend to be readers. So, here is a good book to put on your nightstand.

Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writing of North America edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird (Norton, 1997).

I have read many collections of women's writing throughout my years as a women's literary historian. I have, however, not ever found one that integrates writing about motherhood into general women's writing as well as this one does.

I was surprised. There is not merely one token story about motherhood; there are many, throughout the text, and not put into a separate category that somehow indicates an experience that is separate from the multiplicity of women's lives. There are no stories that show how motherhood and marriage destroyed an artist's or writer's chances; there are stories that show women being both mothers and artists, writers, and powerful, creative people. There are no long debates about mothers either working or staying at home; there are stories that show how native women have always worked, and that in their traditional cultures, their mothering work tended to be valued as much as the warrior work done by men. When all work is valued, and it is assumed that women and men will do both domestic and nondomestic work as part of their vital contributions to their families and communities, the mommy wars are irrelevant.

I enjoyed reading this book, not only for the window into a culture different from the white, mainstream culture in which I was raised, but also for its celebration of women and their many productive and creative roles. Mothers--you will love seeing another how native culture offers mainstream white Americans a different way of valuing motherhood!

Mother Writers in History

Did you know that the first poet published in English in America--male or female--was a mother writer? Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612/13-1672) raised eight children while also writing the poetry that was published in her book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650). Bradstreet wrote on many subjects, including her life as a mother and grandmother in Puritan America. You can read all her writing in a John Harvard Library edition titled the Works of Anne Bradstreet. You can also read about her life and work in the new biography by Charlotte Gordon titled Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet (2005).

And, finally, you can also check out some of her poetry and a short biography at www.annebradstreet.com