cover image Mothers Talk Back

Mothers Talk Back

Susan Swan, Momz Radio. ECW Press, $14.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-88910-420-4

These interviews with 15 mostly Canadian mothers--middle-class and poor, black and white, lesbian and even a man who views himself as a ``male mother''--aim ``to cut the crap about motherhood,'' to share the difficulties of an oft-sentimentalized status. Dragu begins: ``There is a myth that, when you have a baby, you are going to be the total mother--but it's a process, it takes a long time.'' A new mother talks of the ``excruciating'' pain of breast-feeding; a financially struggling mother who takes care of four children says she has no time for herself. Writer Mary Morris says she's ``never been more productive'' than since she became a mother but realizes ``there's no such thing as down time.'' A feminist fears the eventual conflict between messages from her home and her son's school. In her interview with Swan, Sheard notes: ``We don't grow up with literary images of mothers and their relationship to kids.'' Swan says she never expected ``such a primal experience. You coexist with another individual's emotional needs at such close quarters.'' Dragu, a Vancouver writer, and Sheard and Swan, Toronto novelists and editors, turn their interviews into insightful dialogues on the complexities of motherhood. (Apr.)