a double life: discovering motherhood

I’m so pleased to have another author interview to post this week. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Lisa Catherine Harper, whose debut memoir, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood, won the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize.

This is a lovely, meditative memoir that takes the reader through Harper’s first pregnancy and early motherhood. The book blends narrative and research, and, for me, is a wonderful reflection on the complexities of life and celebration of fully living in the moment. I won’t say too much more about the book here, because I’ve written a full review of it for Literary Mama.

So without further ado, please welcome Lisa to Mother Words!

KH: I’m wondering if you can talk a little about the process of writing this book. Did you know when you began writing that you were working on a memoir?

LCH:  I did. I began writing nearly as soon as I became pregnant. I have a PhD, and one of the things I do as a matter of course is research. I realized almost immediately that my body was changing in ways I hadn’t anticipated and which no one had told me about. I researched extensively in OB/GYN textbooks and medical journals and soon began to understand that the biological changes of pregnancy were just the beginning of the enormous emotional and psychological changes of motherhood.  I wrote the book because I wanted to translate the experience of a very ordinary pregnancy for a general reader.  I believed that becoming a mother was an interesting category of experience—not an isolated experience for women only, but an experience tied to life at all corners.

KH:  One of the things I love about A Double Life is your essayistic style. You ponder concepts like movement, dance, pain (to name a few), and circle around and around each of these, really trying to search out meaning and figure out what you really think and believe. I’d love if you could talk a little about the construction of the book, and whether this essayistic circling was a conscious choice or if it’s just how the narrative emerged in the writing process.

LCH:  The style was a conscious choice. I love the essay form.  On the one hand, I wanted to write a book in the very American tradition of long form journalism, which can take the form of (personal) narrative supported by research.   I intended from the start to support my story with research and the kind of rigorous reflection I was trained in by my doctoral studies. On the other hand, I wanted to write a story that was more than my own.  I aspired to write a story that investigated the universal changes of maternity. The essay form was perfect for both of these ambitions.

KH:  Another thing that I really love about the book is how you so deftly wove research into the narrative. Can you talk a little about the research you did in writing this book? Is there anything that surprised you as you began your research?

LCH:  I read everything I could get my hands on:  every book in the bookstore, all the material from my own doctor, pregnancy websites, etc.  But it wasn’t enough, so I turned to medical textbooks, OB/GYN textbooks, and medical journals. I did a lot of research in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).  I read extensively about all aspects of the evolving pregnancy. Some days the research itself was so interesting I had to make myself stop to get to the writing. I read a lot more than I had to (which is so often the case with research!). Only a small fraction of my research made it into the book. I had to translate all this sophisticated material for a general reader (and check and double check my facts). I also spoke extensively with my own doctors at UCSF and with a good friend who was a labor & delivery nurse.

Everything surprised me—but most especially the totality of the changes that occur in pregnancy.  The fact that your lung capacity changes, that you have more blood in your body, that your brain is washed by hormones that can cause you to have an orgasm in your sleep –those things seemed to me astonishing and deeply weird.  They still do. It’s not just your reproductive system that changes. Your entire body is transformed. This, of course, is a metaphor.

I was constantly surprised by the metaphors I found in the research. This was one of the most rewarding aspects of writing. In researching, then writing the morning sickness chapter, for instance, I understood for the first time that pregnancy overtakes your whole body in much the same way just as the nausea can: completely and without warning. Working on the sciatica chapter I found the biological explanation for how we experience pain to be the perfect explanation for some of our most cherished notions of identity (I think, therefore I am). These things helped me understand my own maternity better.

KH:  I love the way you write your relationship with your husband, Kory, and this part of the book really feels like a wonderful love story to me. How did you handle writing about your relationship? Did you get his approval before you went to print? How do you balance your need to create as a writer with your family’s privacy?

LCH  I am, however, in everything that I write constantly balancing the true facts of the story (personal details, revelations, confessions, etc.) with the real demands of the story.  I ask myself: is this fact really necessary? How much do I really need to tell? And in the telling, am I really saying something new? I’m even more conscious of this now that my children are older.  I won’t write a story that involves personal details unless I feel I have something significant to say, it does not violate their privacy, and I am not telling it simply to broadcast a seemingly interesting experience. There must be something more at stake when you write about personal history.  For me, restraint must always temper the use of personal facts when important relationships are at stake.  However, I also believe that if you have to tell the story, you also can’t avoid the hard facts for fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

 

KH:  Lisa, you are a mother, wife and a full-time professor (and dancer, friend, etc.). How do you balance writing, your career, and your family?

LCH:  Over the years I’ve learned to accept and embrace the changes that being a parent brings to my work life. I’ve learned to cultivate discipline and silence in my work life, to work very hard during my work time and to set my work aside completely when the kids come home.  (Though I am not always successful at this latter task.) These things, of course, took years to figure out. The most important practical things I’ve done to protect my work life include: 

·      Cultivate discipline: write during the children’s naps, every day.

·      Before my children were school-age, I took Grace Paley’s advice and resigned myself to “writing at different paces.” It was okay if I worked more slowly some weeks or months. I knew that would change.

·      Don’t stop writing until you know where you will start the next day.

·      Give yourself small, specific assignments: one scene, one section, one chapter revised.

I still use these precepts, even though my writing life has changed enormously with the book publication and the beginning of kindergarten for my youngest.

KH:  What was the most challenging part of writing A Double Life? 

LCH:  Getting published.

Writing the book joined my geeky commitment to research and my lyric love of narrative. It was a joy to write. I found it interesting to dive into the material, investigate the story, and tease out the larger meaning. 

But I had a long road to publication.  Motherhood journals/sites often asked me to take out the research. Literary journals were not so interested in the story of motherhood. And the first publishers we approached didn’t know where it would be shelved: memoir or parenting? It’s both, of course, and readers understand that now, but it took years of perseverance.

KH:  Can you talk a little more about the process of finding a home for A Double Life? What would advice would you give to other writers as they embark on this process?

LCH:  In addition to the where-to-shelve-the-book problem I mentioned above, I had editors who loved my prose but found the book too quiet. There are a lot of stories about motherhood that are sensational or exceptional, but this was not my story. But I had a deep belief in my approach and my book, and I worked very hard to write the most incisive, compelling narrative I could, and then I knew I just had to be patient.  I actually got to the point where I was convinced I would have to publish another book first, and then A Double Life would come out as my second book once I had a better platform. But then I submitted the manuscript to the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, and won, and with that award came the publication deal. Most gratifying was that the Prize series editors understood the book’s mission and ambition completely—as have the readers since publication.  Since then, my agent has been able to sell foreign rights in Taiwan, Brazil, and Italy, so it’s been incredibly satisfying after such a long wait to have readers who understand the book as I envisioned it. The thing is, in spite of the challenges writing this kind of a book posed, in the end the it just took that one editor saying “yes” at the right time. This is always the case: “right editor, right time, right place.”

My advice is always to perfect your craft and write the very best story you can. This is the first and paramount responsibility of any writer. Then the writer’s job is to figure out how to enter the conversation.  To whom are you speaking? Seek out publication in the places having the conversation you want to be part of.  These might be local, regional, online, print, niche markets. There are many ways to begin.  Expect editors to say no, but don’t take that no personally. Be brutal and objective about your work, revise if necessary, and persevere. I often think of the opening lines of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Well Dressed Man with a Beard”:

After the final no there comes a yes

And on that yes the future world depends.

No was the night. Yes is this present sun.

KH:  I love that, Lisa. And I love how the message of perseverance is echoed among so many of the writers I know and love. Don’t give up, writers. And never let the “no” stop you. 

Lisa, thanks so much for taking the time to be here at Mother Words! 

mothers and daughters

If you’ve been reading my posts in the last few weeks, you know that as I sat next to my grandpa the week he was dying, I was reading Rae Meadows’ new novel Mothers and Daughters. It was the perfect novel to read as I said goodbye to Spencer because so much of the story for me was about grief and loss and letting go.

The novel is told from the perspective of three generations of women—a grandmother, mother, and daughter. Violet left New York for the Midwest at age eleven on one of the turn-of-the-century orphan trains. Iris, Violet's daughter, now dying of cancer, has relocated to Florida and reflects on her mother, Violet, her daughter, Sam, and the love she discovered late in life. Sam, an artist and new mother living in Madison, is dealing with her mother’s death and the loss of her first pregnancy as she navigates early motherhood and tries to find her way back into her creative work and out of the secretive isolation she has created for herself.

So much in this novel resonated with me: needing to find balance between creativity and motherhood, coming to terms with loss, finding one’s way back to oneself. So I’m very pleased to have Rae here today to discuss Mothers and Daughters, writing, and how motherhood has affected her work. Welcome, Rae!

KH:  Can you talk a little about how this book started? Was it with an image, a character, an idea?

RM:  Learning about the orphan trains really was what got this novel started for me, and, soon after, the character of Violet was born. I actually based her on a photograph of my grandmother when she was young.

KH:  You’ve woven together three stories in three voices and alternating chapters. Did you always know that the book would be structured this way? Did you write them separately and then splice them together? I’d love if you would talk a little bit about your process.

RM:  I started out wanting to write a three-story structure—I was inspired by The Hours by Michael Cunningham—but when I got started, I had a hard time envisioning the novel as a whole. It seemed more manageable to write each part separately. I wrote Violet first, then Sam, then Iris. The revision process was very important for this book because I had to make sure the spliced stories worked with each other, both thematically and chronologically.

KH:  What did this involve? I’d love a sense of how long this revision process took. I’m picturing you on the floor with chapters spread out around you.

RM:  At one point I really did have chapters and scissors! And lists of who was born when, what happened where, etc. But I liked the challenge of it. It was kind of like a puzzle. And then I added details and scenes to fill out the narrative and cohere the novel. In the end it didn’t take as long as I feared.

KH:  A big part of this story for me was about the power of loss and how loss can isolate us from the people in our lives. One of the things we learn early in the book is that Sam terminated her first pregnancy because the fetus had genetic anomalies. How did you settle on this kind of loss to haunt Sam?

RM:  I had my children on the older side, so my husband and I had to weigh the risks of genetic testing and address all the possibilities. I felt like for Sam, it’s a complicated loss because she chose to terminate yet on some level she regrets that decision and doesn’t feel she’s allowed to grieve. I wanted to make her complicit in her loss, because it becomes a secret for her that gathers weight instead of fading.

KH:  What was the most surprising and/or challenging thing that happened in the process of writing Mothers & Daughters? (In terms of the narrative itself, your writing process, or how you approached the material.) 

RM:  I started out writing the novel as pure historical fiction, with two other characters at the turn of the century, including a doctor at the Wisconsin Insane Asylum. But when I returned to writing after having a baby, the idea didn’t feel right. After this tremendous life change, I knew I wanted to explore motherhood in some way. It was very much a lightning bolt moment to do a three-generational novel about women. (I’m still waiting for the lightning on my next project…)

KH:  I love this, Rae. Each of the women in the story has a very different experience mothering and being a mother. Was this a deliberate decision? How did your own experience with early motherhood help shape (or not shape) the ways Violet, Sam and Iris experienced motherhood?

RM:  It was a deliberate decision. Sam was heavily influenced by my experience as a new mother, but I really wanted to explore motherhood in different iterations. As a writer, I found it compelling to imagine how the circumstances of one’s life (and even one’s mother’s and grandmother’s lives) affect how one mothers. I liked the idea of legacy, for better and for worse. I couldn’t have written this novel before having children.

KH:  You have two children, and one is a baby. Can you talk a little about how your writing life fits in with the rest of your life—mothering, family?

RM: It doesn’t fit! As you know, it’s a crazy juggling act to be a mother and a writer. I am a full time mom, so writing happens in short bursts, late at night. I try to remind myself that this stage, with the girls so young, is a short one. My writing life will open back up. I try to remember that writing is not a race. If a novel takes an extra year to complete, that’s okay.

KH:  Can you describe the editorial process? (How much did you revise the manuscript after it was sold? Can you also talk a little about what it’s like to work with an editor?)

RM:  I spoke with my editor (Helen Atsma) before I sold the novel to Henry Holt, so I knew that I liked her and trusted her vision. It’s always a little scary to get the first round of editor’s notes back on a manuscript—I generally have a mini freak out—but Helen’s comments were clear and felt doable for me, and not that extensive. Most were about adding here and there to fill out the stories. For instance, she wanted more items in the box of Iris’s, and she wanted the box to arrive earlier. The story of Sam needed the most help, probably because she’s the character most like me! There were a couple little things I didn’t agree with, but Helen didn’t make me do anything I felt strongly against.

KH:  How does it feel to have this book out in the world? What kinds of responses are you getting from readers?

RM:  It’s wonderful to have the book out and I feel incredibly lucky. It’s so satisfying to have people read your work and have it resonate with them. Often people have a favorite character of the three—usually Violet. A lot of women tell me they cried, and that is a huge compliment. One of the most flattering comments came from the owner of a bookstore in Chicago. Given the character of Iris, she thought I would be in my seventies.

KH:  One more question: what are you working on now?

RM:  I loved the research part of this novel so much I decided to do it again. I’m writing an interwoven story about a family in the Oklahoma panhandle during the Dust Bowl and the photographer Dorothea Lange.

KH:  Fascinating! I look forward to reading. And thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Add Mothers and Daughters to your reading list! And to read more about orphan trains, visit Rae's website. 

hot (sweaty) mamas!

I never set out to be a runner. Sure, I ran cross country in high school, but most of the time I hated it. I tried to trip myself during races when the exhaustion became unbearable, and my friends and I often took short cuts on long practice runs. We hid in the bushes or ran to Burger King for French fries while the rest of our team trudged through six miles. (How we got away with this, I have no idea.) In those years, I didn’t consider myself a runner, and when I stopped running after high school, I didn’t miss it.

Fifteen years later, when Stella turned one and I still hadn’t lost my pregnancy weight, I started running again. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. It felt like work—hard work. But when a friend encouraged me to try a half-marathon, and I began running serious distances, a surprising thing happened: the more I ran, the more I liked to run.

I lost a little weight and was able to wear clothes I hadn’t fit into for years, which was nice, but running also made me feel more grounded and less frazzled. There was something in the rhythm of my gait that loosened my mind and allowed me to forgive the Tinker Toys and Little People scattered around our living room. I breathed deeply, and by the time I got home, I felt revived, which gave me the energy and inclination to help guide Stella’s little hands as she assembled her farm puzzle for the gazillionth time in a row. I smiled and cheered for her when she found the right home for the cow and the barn and the tractor and the chicken.

Motherhood made me a runner. And running made me a better mother.

Fast forward a few years: I have run the Twin Cities 10 mile and Grandma’s ½ Marathon. I could spend hours looping the bridges along the river roads in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I love running now more than ever and still consider myself a runner even though injuries have kept me from running most of the last year.

And this still holds true: running makes me a better mother and motherhood makes me a better runner.

One of the things I love most about being a runner is that it helped me become the kind of role model I want to be for my daughters. When they see me take the time to lace up my running shoes and head out the door, I am not only making exercise a priority in my life, I’m helping them see it as a priority in their lives, as well.

But being fit and staying fit when you are juggling work and kids and volunteering and family obligations isn’t easy. (And now that I can’t run, it’s even harder to find time to get to the gym or to find the space and quiet I need at home to do a pilates video.)

That’s why I’m so excited about Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom by Kara Douglass Thom and Laurie Lethert Kocanda. This is not a get-thin book, not an over-the-top fitness book. Hot (Sweaty) Mamas will help any busy mom figure out how fitness can fit into her life and into her family’s life. From prioritizing fitness, helping moms to take much needed “me” time, to how to develop a support network for your fitness goals, Thom and Kocanda take a no-nonsense approach to fitness and family. They are funny, engaging and practical without being preachy or patronizing. For any mother who is fit or wants to be, this book is a must-read.

Come celebrate fitness and motherhood and the publication of Hot (Sweaty) Mamas on Saturday, April 9^th at the Herb Box, inside Eden Prairie Life Time Athletic from 4 – 7 p.m. It’s free and open to the public. Come have some refreshments, buy a book, and hang out with other hot sweaty mamas. (And bring your kids, too!)

Where: 755 Prairie Center Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 

When:  4 -7 p.m., Saturday, April 9

And to learn more about Hot (Sweaty) Mamas, visit their website!

thank you!

Thank you to everyone who commented on my de-lurk for Japan post and also to those of you who linked to it from your blogs. What an amazing community! I feel so fortunate to be a part of it. 


I've been a little scattered lately. This weekend D turned 40! (Happy birthday, babe!) We had a lovely sushi dinner on Saturday night followed by a small surprise party at Toast Wine Bar in Minneapolis. D doesn't really like surprises, but I couldn't resist. And even though he claims he doesn't like surprises, he seemed thrilled about it. (See. See.) Sunday was filled with more birthday festivities, but then yesterday I was scrambling to catch up on class prep. Not to mention the fact that it's spring break, which means less work time. Even as I type I have three inventive kids (two of them mine) gathered around the dining room table making bubbling potions with vinegar and baking soda and food coloring. (If the project is safe and they promise to clean it up and it allows me to steal a few minutes at the computer, my answer is almost always yes.) 


But now it's time to make their lunches, so I'm signing off. I'll be back with more serious blogging soon. (I have a wonderful line-up of books to write about this spring, so stay tuned.)


Thanks, as always, for reading!

four years

All week I've been thinking that today, January 28th, was the anniversary of the day I started this blog, but just now I realized it was actually January 20th. So this post is a week late, but I'm celebrating the 4th anniversary of my blog today anyway.

I began this blog to create to a place where writing by women about motherhood would be taken seriously as literature. I wanted to promote the wonderful books and essays and poems being written by writers who are also mothers. And I wanted a place to talk about craft and teaching and the hectic nature of mothering and living and trying to get words on the page.

And I'll admit to anyone who asks (and even those who don't) that starting Mother Words has been one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. I'm now part of a huge virtual community and I've connected with writers I never would have known if it weren't for this blog. My small, often lonely writer's world has expanded beyond what I imagined was possible. And I've made friends, close friends, who live across the globe.

I'm so grateful for all of you, for your words and stories, for your wonderful writing and encouraging words. Thank you for being out there, reading and commenting and writing and living. Today I'm celebrating you!

parents with pens

Thanks to all of you for your kind birthday wishes for my grandpa. He’s had two lovely parties so far and one more tomorrow. (It makes me tired to think about three parties. Imagine doing it when you’re 102.)


I’m pleased to announce that I have Kris Woll here at Mother Words today. Kris is a local Minneapolis writer and mother. She writes the blog A Little Practice, and is about to re-launch Parents with Pens, a local writing group for parents.

KH: Can you talk a little about Parents with Pens?

KW: Parents with Pens is a free writing group for parents who write and/or writers who tackle parenthood as their subject. It is casual and meant to be very supportive -- the kind of place where you can read something your are working on and gather a little feedback, float a few ideas, ponder where you might go with what you are working on. It is also a place to read and discuss some of the great work that is out there on the topic of parenthood. And I hope it's a place where a group of writers can really connect and get to know each other.

Parents with Pens is one of the Open Writing Groups that The Loft Literary Center hosts each month. The Loft kindly provides a space -- their cozy book club room -- where interested writers to gather and talk and read and support each other. Like all the Open Writing Groups, Parents with Pens is free and convened by a volunteer facilitator. And really it's low commitment -- once a month, 90 minutes.

KH: What was the impetus for starting this group?

KW: I first created Parents with Pens in 2009. Then I was still relatively new to Minneapolis, just emerging from the fog of early parenthood, and really eager to connect with other parents and other writers. In PWP’s first incarnation, a small group of us met through most of that year sharing our works-in-progress, but for a number of reasons (you know them -- no time, too much work, stuff to take care of at home, general craziness of life) the group took a break for most of 2010.

This fall I took a writing/reading course at the University of Minnesota, and it was so nice to meet with other writers to read and discuss. As it came to a close it occurred to me that it was very worthwhile to get the PWP group started again. And here we are, about to get started ...

KH: How do interested parents get involved?

KW: The group kicks off on Monday, January 24 at 7pm. For more info, including how to sign up (for this group and others) visit The Loft.

And hopefully, Kate, you might agree to be a special guest at one of our meetings!

KH: I’d be delighted, Kris! Thanks for being at Mother Words today! Head over to The Loft if you’d like to sign up for Parents with Pens.

when clutter really means clutter

Many of my favorite mother bloggers have been writing about the desire to get organized at the same time they've been lamenting the challenge that "getting organized" poses when you have a house full of small children.

I get it. I spend so much of each day picking up toys that I'm often tempted to say the hell with it and just vacuum them all up. (And when you add to the general child and house maintenance a gerbil whose poop chamber, as we have taken to calling it, always needs cleaning, well, "organized" seems impossible.)

But after reading Kara's wonderful post about framing tasks as questions and Kay's post with some tips for keeping a clean house in the midst of pre-schoolers, I knew I needed to do something to clear the clutter. Then I was inspired by this photo of Vicki's office, and I realized that I didn't need to tackle the whole house (or even the basement); I just needed to clear some space so I could think again.

I am embarrassed to even post these photos of my office, but I need the evidence so you'll know how hard I worked yesterday. This is my office yesterday morning:

If you take a look at Kara's office again it's clear that "clutter" means a slightly different thing to her than it does to me. And seriously, what is that disheveled Barbie doing on my books?

Okay, now here is my office last night. D came home from taking the girls to Stella's dance class and said, "Look how big your desk it!" Indeed.

And now I am ready to dive into my work. Do you think I'll write faster now that I can actually see the surface of my desk?

june storms and revision

We’ve had lots of stormy weather in the last few weeks. My sleep has been interrupted with flashes of lightening, cracking thunder, and rain slapping against the windows. The days have been heavy, the air dense and oppressive.

Is it the weather that puts me into a funk? Or all the freelance work I’ve been juggling? Or the problem with my hip and IT band that’s keeping me from running? All of above? Not running definitely affects my moods; I’m less patient and less productive.

D has been home with the girls for a couple of weeks now, so technically I should have plenty of work time, but we’re still muddling through our new schedules and roles. (Me going off to work at the coffee shop every morning while he plans what activities he and the girls will take on: zoo, children’s museum, bike ride to a local lake or park.) Maybe my funk is due in part to the fact that I’ve been feeling a little lonely for my girls and my role as their primary care giver. (Daddy is now the one who is requested more often for bedtime reading, and, well, just about everything else: “I want Daddy to change my diaper!” “No, Daddy wash my hands!” “Daddy do it!”)

But I’m ready to shake off the funk. I’ve caught up on my freelance work and I have the coming week off from teaching. So I’m ready to dive back into the revision of my memoir. (How many times have you heard me say that over the last year and a half? Too many, I’m sure.) But this time I’m serious. I have about 100 pages of the rewrite left, and I need to finish it by mid-August.

This means twenty pages a week. Four pages a day if I write five days a week. That’s a lot for me, but I think I can pull it off. Especially since I already wrote the book once (or twice or three times)?

I remember that the last time I met with my lovely MFA thesis advisor before I graduated she said that by the time I was finished with my memoir, really finished with it (and at the time I had no idea how long this process would take), I would be so sick of it that I’d want to throw the manuscript across the room. I’m actually not sick of the material yet (or at least I’m not sick of it right now, probably because I’m doing so much new writing in this draft that the material still feels fresh.) I am, however, sick of “working on the memoir,” the same memoir I’ve been working on for six years.

I’m ready to move on to the next project, which might be another memoir or might turn out to be a novel. I’m ready to have that buzzing excitement, those months of playing with words and wondering where the story will lead me, what the real story is.

But in order to get to that place, I need to sit down at my computer day after day and finish what’s on my plate. And I’m ready. I hope.

happy mother's day!

I had some quiet reading time this morning when D took the girls out to track down some fresh strawberries and a vanilla latte for me. Then with strawberries and coffee in bed, Stella presented me with all the Mother's Day cards and stories she had written. (Some were collaborations; Zoe contributed scribbles and swirls.)

Then after a quick dance party, we walked around one of our lovely city lakes (the girls jostling for position in the wagon and calling to the ducks the whole way). The sun was glinting off the waves, tons of people were running and walking, and downtown Minneapolis was sparkling in the near distance. What could be better?

Back at home I was able to read more on the porch--an engrossing novel that I don't even have to review! And soon we'll be heading off on bikes to my mom's house. A perfect day.

I hope you've all had a lovely day, as well. I'm so thankful for all the amazing mothers in my life. You inspire me each day. Thank you!

Please check out this really beautiful Mother's Day essay by Jeanine DeHoney over at Literary Mama. Also scroll through the rest of the site. There's been some wonderful material published recently.

by heart

Thanks to everyone who submitted a haiku for the Annual Mother Words Haiku Contest. Laura has a challenging task ahead of her! I’ll post her choice for winner in the next day or two.

On to books: I just finished Kathleen Melin’s lovely book, By Heart: A Mother’s Story of Children and Learning at Home, which tells the story of her family’s journey from public education to home schooling. But this book is about more than mothering and home schooling; it’s about the kind of life a couple chooses for their family. (Instead of a bustling urban life (mine?), Kathleen and her husband embrace rural living—wood burning stoves and maple syrup collecting and all.) This collection of essays explores how one family navigates the choices they make, choices that are sometimes outside what society considers “normal” and “expected.”

Melin questions what socialization is and who it serves. After an encounter with a neighbor who thinks Melin’s three children are missing out because they don’t “go” to school, Melin writes:

It was my first encounter with the question most often asked of home school families: socialization. […] Our (society) accepts as natural rather than strange that the proper socialization for children is institution-based rather than home-based.

We’ve come to doubt that a family, regardless of its plunge into the society around it, can pass on the necessary values and behavior modifications in order to ensure the stability of the social group. We’ve come to suspect parents, the indoctrination they might execute, the things they will do to their own children in their private homes. This frightens us.

Melin dives into history and research and discusses how compulsory school attendance began and to what effect. This aspect of her book was particularly fascinating to me.

Her prose is also lovely, and I found myself wanting to linger with her story. I wish it had been 100 pages longer, so I could have immersed myself more deeply in scene and character, so I could steep myself in her lyrical language.

In my favorite chapter, towards the end of the book, after a fight between Melin’s son, Jack, and her husband, Cy, Melin tries to comfort Jack. Jack says, “Dad hates me. I know he hates me.” And Melin writes:

I want to remind this child of the days he cannot remember, of the days when Cy carried him newborn through the winter woods in the South, showing him the trees, the red clay creek, and explaining the sudden neighing of horses. I want to tell him about the summer I lay in bed two months during (my second) pregnancy and watched as Cy guarded his son’s climb up the ladder in the old orchard where he picked cherries, and how afterward, they swayed in the hammock and feasted on the red fruit.

Lovely.

I am not a home schooler, nor do I want to be. I am a much better mother for the hours I have at my computer, away from the girls I love so dearly. But I love to peek into others’ lives, into other ways of being in the world, other ways of mothering. And for that I’m very grateful for Kathleen Melin’s book.

Kathleen Melin lives on her ancestral farm in northwestern Wisconsin, where she operates a retreat for artists and is at work on a young adult novel series. If you’d like more information about Kathleen and her work, you can contact her at kathleenmelin{at}centurytel{dot}net.

goodbye ARM, hello motherhood institute

I’m sure some of you have heard that the Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) has been forced to close its doors. ARM was established in 1998 and was the first international feminist organization devoted specifically to the topic of mothering and motherhood. With members from over 20 countries around the world, ARM reached across borders and scholarly disciplines, connecting women, mothers, and scholars from across the globe. ARM hosted three conferences each year, published the Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, and also published books through Demeter Press.

But York University, where ARM was housed, was not willing to support the research center. You can read more about that here.

I was actually slated to present a paper at the joint ARM/Mamapalooza conference in New York this spring, and I was thrilled that I would finally meet ARM’s founder, Andrea O’Reilly, and its wonderful coordinator, Renée Knapp. I won’t meet Andrea this year, but I am hoping to meet her someday soon at a conference, a Motherhood Institute for Research and Community Involvement conference.

In the wake of the announcement of ARM’s closing, there was an outpouring of support. Letters were written to York University officials, and there was a flurry of commiserating and outraged e-mails being sent back and forth between ARM members.


It was clear to O’Reilly that the work ARM was doing needed to continue. So a few weeks ago, O’Reilly announced that a new organization on motherhood would be formed and would begin operations on May 1, 2010. The Motherhood Institute for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI) is the newly launched feminist scholarly and activist organization on mothering-motherhood. It will continue the work of ARM, move in new directions and take on new projects.

The institute will house the Journal of the Motherhood Institute (formerly the Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering), Mother Outlaws, The International Mothers Network, The Young Mothers Empowerment Project, The Motherhood Studies Forum, and it will be partnered with Demeter Press. Memberships to MIRCI and subscriptions to the Journal of the Motherhood Institute will commence May 1, 2010.

In an age where writing and research about motherhood is often ignored or discarded (I know you’ve heard me say this before), it’s vital to have organizations like MIRCI working to bring motherhood research out of the limelight. So, join MIRCI if you haven’t already. Or make a donation so their motherhood research, activism, and community work can continue without interruption.

Thank you, Andrea and Renée, for continuing with this important work!