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Summary: All Mothers -To-Be and Mothers Should Read This
Review: A extraordinarily well-written and perceptive book. DeMarneffe combines her skills as a psychologist with her heartfelt understanding of motherhood. I took it with me to Mexico, assuming that I'd never touch it on vacation, and found the book so engaging that I read the entire book in four days.
Whether you're a parent at home, just contemplating motherhood, or deciding whether to return to work after your baby is born, this is an important book to have under your belt.
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Summary: wonderful book for the dedicated mother
Review: FINALLY- a book for someone who likes to be and wants to be a MOTHER! I found this book to be a refreshing change from the barrage of books available on how to be supermom, how to balance a career and a family and everything else, or how to not let your children get in the way of your life. This isn't a self-help book or a personal account, but more on the lines of a sociology book on the current aspects of motherhood. It addresses the modern-day feminist needs to "have it all". My favorite chapters were those dealing with women's desires to stay home with or be the primary figure in their children's lives, and how they have to content with society telling them that they are unintelligent because they do not have careers or weak because they cannot or do not want to leave their children in daycare all day.
This book does NOT attack the non-traditional, modern-day mom. It DOES support the traditional family, letting women know there is nothing wrong with the desire to be a mom.
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Summary: An Enriching Read
Review: I did a review on a another book and I suggested this book in another book review that I did a week ago. Blossoming Beauty: Well Being and Beauty during Pregnancy, by Jo Glanville-Blackburn. WOW, what a book it was. I learnt a more then the other books I read on this subject, still have to read Sarah Blaffer-Hrdy's Mother Nature: Maternal Insticts and How They Shape Human Species, then I will review afterwards. My only complient about the book was the it was how was written for the general public and the subject on the front cover, it was about it, but more subjects in that field. I wonder if Dr. De Marneffe read Naomi Wolf's recent work, which I also suggested as well in that review, Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on to the Journey of Motherhood, published by Doubleday (hardcover), then Anchor Books (paperback), 2001 and 2003. I feel that women from mid to late teens to old age (depends on the old age part it of course). Thank you.
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Summary: LOOK AT THE OTHER REVIEWS, BUT THIS ONE REVIEWS IT THE BEST
Review: I did a review on a another book and I suggested this book in another book review that I did a week ago. Blossoming Beauty: Well Being and Beauty during Pregnancy, by Jo Glanville-Blackburn. WOW, what a book it was. I learnt a more then the other books I read on this subject, still have to read Sarah Blaffer-Hrdy's Mother Nature: Maternal Insticts and How They Shape Human Species, then I will review afterwards. My only complient about the book was the it was how was written for the general public and the subject on the front cover, it was about it, but more subjects in that field. I wonder if Dr. De Marneffe read Naomi Wolf's recent work, which I also suggested as well in that review, Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on to the Journey of Motherhood, published by Doubleday (hardcover), then Anchor Books (paperback), 2001 and 2003. I feel that women from mid to late teens to old age (depends on the old age part it of course). Thank you.
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Summary: Not Supportive Enough of Full-Time Moms
Review: I was disappointed with this book because I believe it too often portrayed the day to day life of a full-time mom as drudgery and boredom. While, of course, it is not always exciting and fun, nothing truly worthwhile is easy. As a full-time mom, I think this book was trying so hard not to offend either side and appear nonjudgmental that it lacked a clear focus. (...)
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Summary: Feminism and Motherhood: not an oxymoron
Review: If you are hoping for an ideological tribute to the women who leave the workplace to look after their young children, you should look elsewhere.This is an extremely compelling and forcefully written exploration of the nature and vicissitudes of maternal love. The author marshals her understanding, both clinical and personal, of feminist pyschoanalytic theory to argue that maternal desire has unique characteristics and that these are at best sentimentalized and at worst villified in social and economic institutions. She asks us to take maternal desire seriously, not as a basis for any particular "choice" in regard to parenting, but as an individual and collective good. The author's experiential engagement with the issues she raises serves to illustrate the progress of her reasoning without setting itself up as an exemplar for all women. The framework she develops creates new possibilities for reasoned discussion of social/economic justice and equality in relation to women's identity formation, children's needs and the "un-gendering" of maternal desire.
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Summary: An Enriching Read
Review: In Maternal Desire DeMarneffe does for mothering what Freud did for sexuality-acknowledges its power as a driver of human thought and action. A veritable tour de force of the feminist, psychological and cultural literature on mothering, Maternal Desire filters several centuries of thought on the subject through the concept of women's innate desire to raise, not simply bear, young. Although this premise seems surprisingly simple, DeMarneffe correctly points out that it has been almost an unmentionable in contemporary society. The book is also somewhat unique in that it doesn't argue for or against working mothers, but rather that we consider maternal desire in the work/life balance equation. I found this book extremely thoughtful and reading it an enriching experience.
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Summary: Excellent take on the realities and metaphors of mothering
Review: This is not a book that tells you that you have made poor choices, or that you need to do exactly what the author says to ensure your kids will turn out ok. The object of this book is to encourage women to acknowledge their mothering instincts. Our society sends very mixed messages about the "value" of caregiving, and this book provides a framework for understanding how maternal desire can fit into a modern life. de Marneffe asks a different question than most books about mothering, childcare, and parenting in general. Under the auspices of searching for a way to integrate a desire to truly mother her children, she touches upon many of the very real moments most parents feel at some point. This book does not take the traditional working parents- versus - stay-home parents, but instead encourages women to listen to their feelings about mothering itself and make better choices about how they will raise their children. What makes this book different is the lack of condemnation of mothers who work outside the home.
Also, although this book is primarily about caring for children, it sends very positive messages and provides encouragement for those who have chosen to care for their elders full-time.
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Summary: Finally a book that advances thought on mothering.....
Review: This is the first book I have encountered that has intelligently given voice to the seemingly obvious yet currently obfuscated fact that many women desire to have children and to play a very active role in taking care of them rather than "outsourcing". While this was seen as the only route just a few generations ago, the choices available to my generation of now 30-somethings have actually made it a rather suspect choice among the upwardly mobile. Why would anyone stay at home with the kids given the choice not to?
de Marneffe turns this question on its head and begins from a place that acknowledges and respects maternal desire no matter what a woman's situation may be vis-?-vis working and mothering. She does not come up with any prescriptives that maternal desire means that all women should be doing one thing or the other. Instead, she simply gives voice to that desire in a way that I experienced to be extremely cathartic as a mother of two who has clocked two years as a working mother and one year at home with the kids.
This book creates the psychic space needed to consider the role we want to play as mothers while deftly avoiding getting caught in stale debates that either sentimentalize or devalue our choices. The way women think about and experience working and mothering has undergone a monumental shift from the now decades old idea that motherhood is a trap that women are pushed into. While this was once a revolutionary thought that played its role in helping to open up opportunities for women, it is overly ripe for refining. de Marneffe rightly puts her finger on the fact that our own desires, our own agency plays a driving role in our choice to mother and is therefore able to revisit old debates from a meaningful new perspective. This is not a "backlash" against feminism. It is more like the evolution of feminism.
This book is the "Feminine Mystique" for the current generation of young mothers. Buy it! Read it! Discuss it with your partners and your friends.
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Summary: A new and truly radical feminist take on motherhood
Review: Wow. I cannot thank De Marneffe enough for writing this book. I just started it, and I already feel like it has changed my life because it offers such a simple but revolutionary new perspective on motherhood. It is incredibly validating to me -- as a woman, as a mother, and as a feminist. But it certainly isn't "old-school" feminism. I think it represents the direction that feminism will take in the 21st century. Ever since I became a mother, I feel like I'm living in Babel - everyone's speaking a different language, and no one's speaking mine. This book is like a revelation, a lucid translation of all the surprising new feeelings that have surfaced in me since I had a child, but that I have been afraid or ashamed to admit to. The book represents the first discourse that I've found to look at motherhood neither as a foolish and short-sighted sell-out of a woman's individuality, nor as a perfectly selfless act of Christian martyrdom pursued solely for the sake of the children. What if motherhood , even full-time motherhood, is a self-actualizing spiritual journey and a valid form of self-expression that enhances the mother herself? I've never been able to figure out WHY I want to have children so much. De Marneffe's view of motherhood helps me understand and give a voice to my desire to mother. If you're looking for a book that covers the economic realities of dealing with work/life balance issues, this is not the book for you. But I don't think it's reasonable to think that we can tackle that much larger social issue until we've developed this individual discourse about the true meaning and value of motherhood (and of parenthood). My only criticism of the book is that I would rather see a book written about "parenting desire," not just maternal desire, because I don't think it's just women struggling with this issue. I hope that De Marneffe's next book does for fathers and paternal desire what this book does for mothers.
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