Of Woman Born

Adrienne Rich

Norton

Child-rearing man­u­als cropped up with a vengeance in the lat­ter half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury after Dr. Benjamin Spock pro­duced Baby and Child Care—the all-time best-selling book in American his­tory, sec­ond only to the Bible, despite advice such as “Enjoy him” and “don’t be afraid of him,” and remem­ber, “feed­ing is learn­ing.” (Grrrrr.) Now there are thou­sands of self-help and baby-care schmaltz books (many of them poorly dis­guised as mother-rearing tracts), and since I found out I was preg­nant, I’ve been read­ing my way through genet­ics, psy­cho­analy­sis, phi­los­o­phy, anthro­pol­ogy, lit­er­ary crit­i­cism and new age kitsch to answer the ques­tion: What does it mean to be a mother in the twenty-first cen­tury and how the hell do I do it? 

 I started with Adrienne Rich’s man­i­festo Of Woman Born (Norton, 1976). What a spring­board! Rich’s book is still the most com­pre­hen­sive his­tory of moth­er­hood — both the insti­tu­tion and the expe­ri­ence — that I could find. It was a bomb­shell when it came out in the ’70s and it still is. 

In Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood (Doubleday, 2001), the American fem­i­nist Naomi Wolf clev­erly decon­structs the American birthing indus­try, cit­ing har­row­ing num­bers: for instance, one in three child­births in the U.S.A. is a Caesarean, and the American med­ical estab­lish­ment would lose some $1 bil­lion per annum if the rate were closer to that of other indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries. She also argues that the fem­i­nist move­ment does not have to deny the fetus as human-in-utero in order to advance abor­tion rights. 

Nine mil­lion par­ents have read the step-by-step guide What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Arlene Eisenberg (Workman, 1996) since it first appeared in the 1980s. It cov­ers the basics on phys­i­cal and emo­tional shifts dur­ing preg­nancy and iden­ti­fies symp­toms to watch out for, but it’s occa­sion­ally a Spockian night­mare: “Before you close your mouth on a fork­ful of food, con­sider, ‘Is this the best bite I can give my baby?’” 

The Complete Book of Mother and Baby Care (Reader’s Digest, 1992), com­piled by the Canadian Medical Association, presents advice in four-week blocks, start­ing with con­cep­tion and end­ing at Week 40, with a full-colour photo of a nude model all a-belly at each stage. It’s clear, prac­ti­cal and only mod­er­ately patron­iz­ing, although all the mod­els here (as in other books) look like Sunday school teachers. 

Mothers Talk Back (Coach House, 1991) by Margaret Dragu, Sarah Sheard and Susan Swan, is a great Canadian take on moth­er­hood: inter­views with mamas who defy tra­di­tion sim­ply by telling their sto­ries. “Who was this fat, mis­er­able shrew who spent all her time in play­grounds or cook­ing, shop­ping, clean­ing, wip­ing up poop, wor­ry­ing, rock­ing, sooth­ing?” Dragu writes in the intro­duc­tion. “I was so tired … and on top of that, I was invisible.” 

The British author Kate Figes, in Life After Birth (Viking, 1998), has drawn on her own expe­ri­ence and some metic­u­lous research to pro­duce a clev­erly writ­ten trea­tise on adjust­ing to moth­er­hood: emo­tions, exhaus­tion, sex, friends, and fam­ily life — includ­ing post-baby blues, ambiva­lence, iso­la­tion and other new-mom struggles. 

Expecting Baby: 9 Months of Wonder, Reflection and Sweet Anticipation by Judy Ford (Conari, 1997) is a weird med­i­ta­tion on preg­nancy in a sac­cha­rine, Jesus-loving voice. Judge this book by its cover, please: pas­tels and clouds, an Ann Geddes baby, a stork. Or by the fore­word: “After a par­tic­u­larly con­fus­ing day, I opened Expecting Baby … Judy’s ten­der words freed me.” This one is milky pablum for the mother’s soul and should be banned from shelves. 

The Hip Mama Survival Guide by the American wel­fare activist Ariel Gore (Hyperion, 1998), on the other hand, is a refresh­ing switch for moms who don’t wear poly­ester frocks or wor­ship Newt Gingrich. Gore offers splen­did attacks on the right-wing fam­ily val­ues cru­sade in the U.S. along with punchy advice on every– thing from hor­mones to polit­i­cal action to fam­ily court. It’s a witty, bru­tally hon­est, mama-in-the-trenches read with a trunk­ful of rad­i­cal tricks.