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Four books to celebrate mothers
REVIEWS BY LINDA STANKARD
Northrup likens the stages of a woman's life to moving through a house, starting at the foundation and going upward. If a woman moves confidently from one room to the next, she builds a legacy of emotional and physical health, a guidepost for her daughter to follow. Failing to do so, however, getting stuck in one room or skipping one, often results in emotional or health-related problems. But she also maintains that despite the connectedness between mothers and daughters, each woman is on her own separate journey, responsible for "her own life, her own choices, her own happiness." Mother-Daughter Wisdom offers a wealth of advice on health—eating, exercise, self-esteem, moral decisions, money matters, sexuality—and it's a must-have on every woman's shelf.
By Dr. Christiane Northrup Bantam, $28 738 pages, ISBN 0553105736
Voices from the front Because I Said So, edited by Kate Moses and Camille Peri, is a searing collection of essays from 33 women facing the challenges of motherhood in the 21st century, when automatic, autocratic parental axioms are of little help. Despite the common thread of motherhood, there's a wide span of subject matter here—children, sex, men, aging, faith, race—from an eclectic array of cultural perspectives and attitudes, and from a terrific lineup of first-rate writers. "On Giving Hope" is just one of the many gems in this collection. Written by Mariane Pearl (her husband, journalist Daniel Pearl was killed by terrorists in 2001 while she was pregnant with their first child), this narrative testifies to the power of love to override hate and bring hope. "I know that by killing my husband, the terrorists expect to break my life, too, and that of my son," Pearl writes. "But I am fighting the holiest of fights, and I win. Giving birth to our baby is my ultimate act of anti-terrorism."
Edited by Kate Moses and Camille Peri HarperCollins, $24.95 400 pages, ISBN 0060598786
The mother she never knew
By Pamela Marin Free Press, $25 256 pages, ISBN 0743256107
Mothers know best
By Katherine Ellison Basic, $25 304 pages, ISBN 0465019056
Linda Stankard is a mother and a daughter.
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Women who are mothers writing about motherhood—what better way to celebrate Mother's Day than to read or share a book
like that? One excellent example is
Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health by best-selling author Dr. Christiane Northrup (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom). Northrup points out a simple but profound truth: every woman is a daughter. She believes the mother-daughter bond, "in all its beauty, pain and complexity, forms the very foundation of a woman's state of health."
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But what if you never had a chance to know your own mother? In
Motherland: A Memoir, Pamela Marin writes a first-person account of her quest to know the mother she lost to bone cancer in 1973, when she was 14. Since her father removed all evidence of her mother's existence after her death and her mother had been a very private person, Marin had little to go on but her childhood memories—so she embarks on a journey to Tennessee, Chicago and California to find her. "What was I doing, exactly?" Marin asks herself as she begins to interview a woman her mother went to art school with in Tennessee. But she answers her own question: "A daughter wants to know about her mother. Simple as that." And that knowledge is empowering.
A working mother of two boys, Katherine Ellison gives us
The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter. "A modern affliction called 'Mommy Brain'," she writes, "is a cheerful synonym for abrupt mental decline. The phrase summons the image of a ditzy pregnant woman who weeps at Kleenex commercials, or of a frazzled mom with nothing in her head but carpool schedules and grocery lists." But Ellison argues that the diverse demands of motherhood actually improve the brain's plasticity, the formation of new neurons and connections. "What stimulates us in a sense re-creates us, creating new and stronger pathways between synapses." She names five attributes of a "baby-boosted brain," including perception, emotional intelligence and efficiency. A well-documented resource book for women's studies, The Mommy Brain would also make a great gift for a sleep-deprived new mother who feels like she can't think anymore!