The Maternally Inclined
My baby daughter is a big fan of in-arms napping, which means that for a couple of hours most days I find myself sitting, quiet and still, with a sleeping baby in my lap. I often sit with her in the big, comfortable chair that we've put in front of one of the computers and try to catch up a little on my surfing. Lately I'm reading a lot of "mom blogs," and in the past couple of months I've seen a number of mentions of Andrea J. Buchanan. After reading the fourth or fifth glowing recommendation of her work, I decided it was time to check it out myself.
Buchanan is the managing editor of the e-zine Literary Mama and has written Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It (Seal Press 2003). In addition, she has edited three collections of essays: It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons (Seal Press, Nov. 2005), Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal Press, Jan. 2006), and It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters (Seal Press, May 2006). The last of these was the one I decided to start with--I think I hoped to gain some perspective on my struggles with my pre-adolescent older daughter--and it's left me with a taste for more. I've got both It's a Boy and Mother Shock on order, and I'm more eager to read each than the other.
It's a Girl contains thirty essays on a wide variety of subjects, from body image and eating disorders to bonding and separating and the passing of maternal legacies. The anthology is divided into four sections, each with a selction of essays exploring the different facets of the mother-daughter relationship. In the words of reviewer Hope Edelman, "[t]he essays in this book are so candid and unflinching they had me laughing, cringing, and bobbing my head in identification all at the same time," and I can't do more than agree with her assessment. The stories of It's a Girl may not have solved all my mothering woes, but they did remind my that I'm not alone, and they helped strengthen my (sometimes wavering) convictions that my girls and I will make it to the other side of their childhood intact in mind and spirit. And that, I think, is what Buchanan had in mind all along.