motherhood Archives - A Geography of Reading

What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About

May 11, 2019 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Mother’s Day is nearly here and whether you’re of the group that posts adorable tributes to their mothers or the one that cringes (or openly shames those posters) because their reality doesn’t reflect yours (or you live somewhere in between), this might be a good year to read What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About. It was for me. While I especially loved that the experiences represented in the essays therein were diverse enough to reflect mine and also to challenge my thinking, I was also grateful to get new angles on my relationship with my mother and with myself as a mother.

“There is a gaping hole perhaps for all of us, where our mother does not match up with ‘mother’ as we believe it’s meant to mean and all it’s meant to give us.” – Lynn Steger Strong

Maybe “motherhood” is such a loaded concept because so much of who we are and who we believe ourselves to be is tied up in our relationship with the woman of whom we are borne. For too many of us that concept becomes something we have to work on for the rest of our lives as we grow from infants to children to adults and maybe even parents. It is for me. I think it has been for my mom, too. This complexity made me appreciate the ways in which the writers in this collection worked to understand both themselves and their mothers as separate beings in addition to examining the deeply close relationship between individuals.

“Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” – Michele Filgate

Individuation is a Bitch (and So Was I)

It took a therapist to teach me the word “individuation” and it took my son to really teach me what the word means. At three and a half he’s stretching that individuality in all the ways he’s meant to. I can see how it hurts him to rip himself from me and how much he needs to know he’s welcome back. I can see how deeply he needs to have that space to become and how much he has no idea that his own actions can hurt, too. It reminds me of both the teen years to come and of my own teen years. I don’t think it’s fair to call myself a bitch (beyond even the patriarchal implications of that word) but not only was my own becoming hard on me, it was hard on my parents. I was hard on my mom. Our relationship now is not what I think either one of us wants it to be but I don’t think either one of us knows yet how to bridge the hurts.

“In their company I find myself turning mute, surly, rude. I become a different person than I know myself to be, a different person than my close ones know me to be. The burden of the unsaid turns my heart into a balled fist.” – Nayomi Munaweera

Nayomi Munaweera’s essay “Her Body / My Body” about her mother’s inability to separate her idea of herself from her daughter hit close to home for me. The conflict is neatly summed up as “she saw no difference between her body and my body,” except if you’ve been in this kind of relationship you know how much that “neat” sentence conceals. While my mom did not wipe my ass until I was 12 (thank God!), I’ve struggled at times to feel like my mom sees me as a separate being. The push-pull of individuation is so necessary and yet it can be so painful for everyone, it’s no wonder that so many relationships break down along these lines. I hope I can do better with my son. Most days I am not doing better with my son.

Mothers are Humans

News flash! The fact that our mothers are human should not be surprising and yet the idea sort of rubs. When we are infants mothers seem purpose-built to meet our needs. As we grow up we grow into meeting our own needs many of us (guilty!) never really turn around and fully look at our mothers as people too.

“I felt so much like her and I wanted to tell her how. But I have made that phone call and it has failed me too many times.” – Lynn Steger Strong

Although Leslie Jamison’s relationship with her mom is wonderfully close—so much so that she writes how her friends never want to hear about the joy of that relationship, even in closeness there are things to learn. Jamison’s essay is about connecting with her mother’s former husband so that she can be even closer to the idea of her mother. When Jamison writes “How many times has my mom picked up the phone to hear my voice cracked with tears, only letting it crack once I knew she was there?” she is realizing new depths to her mother and that even the advice her mother has to offer isn’t something she’s fully inhabited herself. Instead that “wisdom” can be “a kind of muscle memory—something she might have wanted to tell that version of herself.”

This is tricky, because if our mothers, the women who represent the pinnacle of humanity, aren’t perfect, than how can we ever hope to be?

Brandon Taylor’s essay, “All About My Mother” left me with excellent homework. The essay is filled with a gorgeous back and forth about the ways his mother loved him and the ways she hurt him. He’s clearly grappling with understanding how both could co-exist, but in the final page of the essay he writes a slew of declarative sentences to describe his mother. I’d say they’re simple but they aren’t—the ideas are complex and the sentences contradict each other, but they are free of judgment and bring us closer to seeing her as a full human. I know that I can get closer to my mother by trying to see her in the same way. Maybe I’ll discover something as remarkable as André Aciman’s observance that his deaf mother could understand his masked conversation simply by following the movement of his eyebrows.

I was once my mother’s confidante in ways that I did not want to be. In this I related to “Nothing Left Unsaid” by Julianna Baggott which gave me a new lens to view that experience through… Baggott’s own examination and growth took me from feeling victimized by TMI to seeing my mother as a woman who might not have had anyone else to talk to.

“It’s the fear that I’ve learned less from my childhood than I should have, that I am more like her than I want to be.” – Carmen Maria Machado

The Strength to Mother Ourselves

I first heard of this book during a panel at AWP entitled “Writing the Mother Wound” where a couple of these essays were read. I learned a lot from that panel, not just about writing about motherhood but also about living with my own mother wound. One of the lessons that hit home was from Vanessa Martir who said, “I may be unmothered, but I will always want my mother’s love.” I realized then that I needed to look into this experience and not run anymore from what isn’t working. Because I do love my mom and I want her to love me. I think she does, but there are still voids between the love she gives and the love I want to receive… voids I have to learn to fill myself.

“To grasp that which has hurt you, you must trust it not to hurt you when you let it inhabit you.” – Brandon Taylor

In some ways I dream of having Alexander Chee’s grown-up experience… the one where he talks to his mom about some really hard things and she helps him rewrite his narrative more fully. It’s a door that opened for me this winter when my maternal grandmother (a well of toxicity) died and I finally had a long overdue conversation with my mom. I heard some of the things I needed to hear that day, but I’m still having trouble trusting that our next conversation will build from there. And I fear that this next quote is optimistic.

“There is a difference between the fear of upsetting someone who loves you and the danger of losing them.” – Melissa Febos

Other Things I Loved in This Book

There were so many moments in these essays I related to in ways that were not about my mother. From Jamison’s description of writers as vampires to Machado’s love/fear of toddlers and how children destroy writing to Kiese Laymon’s observations that “the folks I’ve been most harmful to in this country are people I thought I loved.” The stark patterns in “Fifteen” by Bernice L. McFadden broke my heart hard and I felt deeply for the woman Dylan Landis’s mom could have been (even if only romantically so) in “16 Minetta Lane.” I recognized the woman Cathi Hanauer’s mother is in “My Mother’s (Gate) Keeper” and am still learning from the idea of living with the itch of a mosquito bite. The way Melissa Febos inhabits her mother’s lexicon in “Thesmophoria” is pure magic and Michele Filgate’s reminder that sometimes the deepest hurt is betrayal was illuminating in ways I won’t go into now. The book is rich and the experiences varied. I think readers of all kinds of backgrounds will find something in it to relate to.

What I Really Want for Mother’s Day

Since becoming a mother I haven’t been the best celebrant of Mother’s Day in regards to my own mom. I’ve wanted to soak up the time and love of my son and husband. I’ve wanted to enjoy the cupcakes and flowers and uninterrupted baths. This year I’ve asked them for a trip to the garden store and a planting-a-thon in our gorgeous back yard—my safe haven from the world. But this year I also want to talk to my mom. I don’t know what I want to say and I don’t know what I want her to say, but I do know that the cord between us is not completely cut, nor do I want it to be. So I’m going to sacrifice some of my guaranteed bliss for a shot at the bliss of mending fences. Wish me luck!

I don’t recommend you send your mom What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About for Mother’s Day, but I do recommend you send it. Start a conversation about something you’ve never said or about something you’ve never asked. Talk to her like a human you love, one who you may not have fully recognized as a separate human. I’ll bet money hearing from you is what she really wants on any given day.

Your homework is to pick up a copy or two of What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Nobody Told Me | After Birth | Like a Mother

September 15, 2018 by Isla McKetta, MFA 1 Comment

How often do three titles coalesce into a relatively coherent expression of the experience of reading them? I was going to call this review “Revisiting Pregnancy Narratives After Three Years of Motherhood” because something made me delve back into this topic almost exactly three years after the birth of my son, but somehow Nobody Told Me, After Birth, and Like a Mother was just perfect. Even (especially?) in its semi-coherence.

I feel blessed to live in an age where such a wealth of literature (fiction and non-) is being produced to counter some of the crap that our culture has converged around as our vision of motherhood. There are precursors, yes, and I’ve written about some of my favorite pregnancy books for writers previously, but Nobody Told Me, After Birth, and Like a Mother spoke hard to my mother self, writer or not, and I wanted to share why.

Nobody Told Me

I’ll admit that when my husband gave Nobody Told Me by Hollie McNish for Mother’s Day “because it was on your to-read list” I had absolutely no memory of having ever heard of this book. While people did tell me I’d experience “pregnancy brain,” no one told me (that I remember anyway) my ability to retain information would be permanently altered (or at least that’s my experience so far).

There were so many thing no one told me (and which I cannot remember) that reading McNish’s contemporaneous journal of her pregnancy and first three years of motherhood made me feel wonderfully immersed in that world again. Her voice is gently honest, and whether she’s recounting the everyday indignities (like having no one offer you a seat on the bus when you’re ginormous) or sweetnesses (“When no one is watching, I feel amazing. Like that gigantic, ripe, juicy magic peach”) you’re endeared to her (and, if you’ve been pregnant, to your own memories both good and bad). She’s also deeply generous to the people around her—taking the necessary moments to look at why her grandmother tries to spare her the “embarrassment” of walking around her village pregnant and unwed or when McNish takes pity on her father who is helpless around her child and examines why his generation of men is that way and all the things they’re missing as a result.

I loved that she included her (basically unedited I think) poems in this text, even though I did not always love the poems, because they made me love even more this huge body of work I created while pregnant that I’ve been somewhat embarrassed by (both because I’ve been adding a derogatory “mommy poetry” label to it and because I was new to poetry so a lot of it really isn’t good).

Whether credit goes to me for finding this book (which will be issued in the US this November) or to my husband for having the memory to get it into my hands, I don’t care. I’m just glad I read it and that I read it right now.

Like a Mother

How strange and wonderful it felt to find Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy in a newsletter for a local bookstore because Angela Garbes is a local author and though our worlds have not overlapped, I feel like our experiences have. There was not as much revolutionary science as I hoped in this book (partially because I did get to read Penny Simkin and some others who are trying to give pregnant women actual information while I was pregnant), but I still loved the book and I learned a lot of things. Most importantly I learned to trust my own experience.

Garbes is witty and straightforward as she recounts the kinds of stories I have only ever shared with closely trusted family members (maybe I should be better about breaking the “nobody told me” cycle but I might let Garbes do it for me). From breastfeeding to sex to the importance of being cared for during pregnancy and birth, this book touched so many memories (and nerves) for me.

Through the gory (fascinating) details of the function of the placenta to the beauty of the ways that life and death coexist in a woman’s body as she carries with her forever the cells of motherhood, I felt grief while reading this book and I felt empowered. Most of all I felt normal, a sensation that is far too uncommon in these somewhat lonely days of parenting.

After Birth

Though it was Garbes who wrote about how parents “lean into the utter obliteration of their previous selves,” it’s Elisa Albert who dives all the way into exploring that experience in her novel, After Birth. The thing I love most about this book (among many) is how deeply angry new mother Ari is. It’s something I’ve seen lambasted in reviews, which I understand because it’s directly in opposition to the sweet, loving acceptance we all want to think our mothers immediately felt when we were born, but it’s fucking real. Especially in a world where too many of us are too alone in this event that changes our lives completely.

Ari grapples with a birth that did not go how she wanted it to (this is a euphemism because no one except other mothers really wants to even hear about shitty birth experiences), a body that’s irrevocably changed (torn apart), and a community that either does not or cannot meet her needs (in many cases because they aren’t even there). In short, it’s an all-too-familiar tale, but one that many women suffer in silence. I loved how angry Ari was because anger is the last thing we want moms to express and yet it’s a very real emotion (and one that doesn’t get better if we don’t feel entitled to even feel it).

After Birth can be as uncomfortable to read as the title is to imagine. It’s also funny and dark and real and I want all of my friends to read it and then I want us to say, collectively, all the taboo things about parenting REALLY FUCKING LOUD.

If you want to get real about pregnancy and early parenting, pick up a copy of Nobody Told Me, Like a Mother, and After Birth from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Emma Donoghue’s Room vs. Isla Morley’s Above: Two Takes on a Mother in Captivity

April 17, 2016 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Initially, I was reluctant to read Emma Donoghue’s Room, because I’d recently read Above by Isla Morley and I was pretty sure there were only so many “kidnapped woman imprisoned for years bears the child of her kidnapper/rapist” stories this new mom could take. But I found Room in one of our neighborhood Little Free Libraries and couldn’t resist. As similar as the stories sound at first blush, the books could not be more different. Except that I loved them both.

Point of View

Above begins with teenaged Blythe’s first-person account of her kidnapper closing the door on her.

“Dobbs wins the fight easily. He shuts and locks the door. I feel a small sense of relief. With a hulking slab of metal separating us, I am finally able to breathe just a little. It is only when I hear another thump, another door closing someplace above me, that I understand: not only am I to be left alone; I am to be hidden.” – Isla Morley, Above

For the rest of the book we are immersed directly in the immediate experience of someone who has been kidnapped. At first, the world of the abandoned missile silo where Blythe is being kept is entirely new to her, and we’re with her as she discovers all the sights and sounds, writes a note to her parents telling them she’s run away, and is about to be raped by Dobbs (that particular action happens mercifully offscreen). The effect of this viewpoint is intense, intimate, and terrifying.

Whereas Room is told entirely from the point of view of Jack, a five-year-old boy who was born in captivity. While Morley is able to show us Blythe’s former life through flashback, Donoghue has created a narrator with no experience of life outside. For Jack, that one room is the entire world.

Writing from the point of view of a kid is a challenging thing to do. Creating an entire world for a reader in a compelling way using this limited voice is even more challenging, but Donoghue nails it. Not only are the cadence of Jack’s speech and his tics well-honed and interesting to read, the way he sees the world is also fascinating.

“I count one hundred cereal and waterfall the milk that’s nearly the same white as the bowls, no splashing, we thank Baby Jesus. I choose Meltedy Spoon with the white all blobby on his handle when he leaned on the pan of boiling pasta by accident. Ma doesn’t like Meltedy Spoon but he’s my favorite because he’s not the same.” – Emma Donoghue, Room

Would you believe I chose that paragraph at random? The entire book is like that with the incredible rush of child’s-view detail in a child’s grammar and mingled with reminiscences of simple moments all managing to reveal insights into the characters. We learn about the tiny room and a day-to-day schedule that feels completely composed of play until nine o’clock when Jack retires to “Wardrobe” and beep-beep Old Nick (their captor) comes to visit Ma.

Sometimes it took me awhile to catch on to what Jack meant by phrases like “I have some now, the right because the left hasn’t much in it” and the book took me much longer than usual to read, but I cherished every minute. I was astounded by how well Donoghue pulled off Jack’s point of view and if I were to re-read this book for anything, I would re-read it for this fantastic voice work.

The Kidnapper

The push-pull relationship between Blythe and Dobbs is the central conflict of life inside the silo in Above. As a result, we get to know the man and his motives relatively well. We learn that believes the world is about to come to an end and that by sequestering Blythe he’s actually saving her from imminent disaster.

For the first half of the book it’s impossible to tell if he’s mentally ill or deeply prescient, but it’s clear that he believes he’s doing the right thing. Which creates a strange but important possibility for sympathy for this character. He’s not a cardboard cutout of pure evil. He has motivations. He means well. This rounded portrait creates an antagonist who’s much more chilling because he’s much more believable and the possibility remains open that he’s saving Blythe’s life.

In Room, the kidnapper—Old Nick—is barely present. This is a really interesting choice because it makes the story almost entirely about Jack and Ma. Donoghue accomplishes this by having Ma almost entirely shield Jack from Old Nick. He knows about the child’s existence, but in their everyday life, the two are never allowed to meet. We learn things about Old Nick entirely from what Ma tells Jack which means that although we can imagine the awfulness of his deeds, our own view of him is somewhat protected. As a result, it’s harder to feel the menace of Old Nick (even though we know by the fact that he’s kept this woman caged in a garden shed that he’s a really bad guy) and the story really focuses on the relationship between Jack and Ma. And Ma is Jack’s antagonist.

The World Outside

Here’s where the spoilers start.

When Blythe finally escapes the silo, she finds the entire world changed. Dobbs may have been a lot of bad things, but it turns out he was right. And he did save Blythe’s life. As she navigates the post-apocalyptic world with Adam, the child she raised and with whom she escaped, we learn how very different the world outside is from Blythe’s childhood memories. It is still a tale of survival, but suddenly the silo seems like a haven stocked with food and free from outsiders. And a new dimension of the story emerges: fertility.

The two halves of Above really do feel like two different books, but they could not exist without each other.

While in Room, Jack the outside doesn’t even feel real. Jack relates it to television because it’s what he has to relate it to. The idea that there are buildings and other people and a whole world out there feels as real to him as his good friend Dora (the Explorer). The conflict of the story hinges on Jack’s desire to stay inside this womb with his mother and her desire to escape. Once they do escape, the conflict shifts to Jack’s desire to return to that womb while Ma wants to live in the world she once knew. One scene I related very personally to is when Jack tries to stop Ma from taking the first shower she’s taken in years.

Maternal Instinct

As a new mother, the hardest parts of Above for me to read were when Blythe’s natural born child dies and then later when Charlie, the child Dobbs brings to fulfill her maternal desires suffers. This is also when Blythe really comes alive as a mother, which was interesting for me to read as my own maternal instincts were peaking out. But what really spoke to my heartstrings was the relationship between Blythe and Adam after they escape. Watching the mutually protective relationship was extra poignant for me as I wondered what my relationship with my son would eventually be like. As I hoped he will have a life that doesn’t require protecting me.

But it was Room that really spoke to the mom in me. The womb metaphor could have been overplayed but wasn’t. I read most of the book as my son played next to me. I wanted to protect Jack like I’d protect my own son. I felt the sweetness and irksomeness of the demands of attention. I wanted Ma to be free of the room as much as I wanted to snuggle that little boy. I loved reading about the way Jack reasoned and imagining what worlds my son will invent as his brain develops. At times I felt Jack’s voice could have been coming from my son. And yes, when he nurses, I sometimes ask him if he “wants some” and wonder if the left or the right is more creamy.

As much as I resisted reading Above and Room, these are both good books. I’d recommend Above for the dystopianists and Room for the moms. But they are even more interesting in tandem.

To do your own comparison, pick up copies of Above and Room from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.