Maternal Home Quotes

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

Enforced maternity brings into the world wretched infants, whom their parents will be unable to support and who will become the victims of public care or ‘child martyrs’. It must be pointed out that our society, so concerned to defend the rights of the embryo, shows no interest in the children once they are born; it prosecutes the abortionists instead of undertaking to reform that scandalous institution known as ‘public assistance’; those responsible for entrusting the children to their torturers are allowed to go free; society closes its eyes to the frightful tyranny of brutes in children’s asylums and private foster homes.

...as he finally sheds his body's suit, ------ finds his gut and throat again and newly whole, clean and unimpeded, free, catapulted home over fans and the Convexity's glass palisades at desperate speeds, soaring north, sounding a bell-clear and nearly maternal alarmed call-to-arms in all the world's well-known tongues.

...if I were an angel of the Lord, I would mark the doors of each of my children's homes with an X, so that plague and misfortune would pass over them. Alas, I lack the qualifications. So when there was still world and time enough I fretted. I nagged. I corrected. I got everything wrong.

As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal--and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach. Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest taks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favor instead of doing his part.

Right-wing women have surveyed the world: they find it a dangerous place. They see that work subjects them to more danger from more men; it increases the risk of sexual exploitation. They see that creativity and originality in their kind are ridiculed; they see women thrown out of the circle of male civilization for having ideas, plans, visions, ambitions. They see that traditional marriage means selling to one man, not hundreds: the better deal. They see that the streets are cold, and that the women on them are tired, sick, and bruised. They see that the money they can earn will not make them independent of men and that they will still have to play the sex games of their kind: at home and at work too. They see no way to make their bodies authentically their own and to survive in the world of men. They know too that the Left has nothing better to offer: leftist men also want wives and whores; leftist men value whores too much and wives too little. Right-wing women are not wrong. They fear that the Left, in stressing impersonal sex and promiscuity as values, will make them more vulnerable to male sexual aggression, and that they will be despised for not liking it. They are not wrong. Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on-one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex— their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—“femininity, ” “total woman, ” “good, ” “maternal instinct, ” “motherly love. ” Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to to survive.

So it’s without superpowers that you come home from the hospital with your newborn child and feel utterly abandoned and terrified. You look at the hospital staff as they discharge you from the maternity ward like they’re leaving you to die in the desert.

Song of myself I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine, One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same, A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live, A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian, A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland, At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking, At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch, Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving their big proportions,) Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat, A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest, A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

I never settled with anything. It was like a pendulum; swinging back and forth but never reached a comatose state. As a sequence of events around me unfolded, I struggled to understand who I was, whose child I was and whether I would ever find a way home.

The tremendous historical need of our unsatisfied modern culture, the assembling around one of countless other cultures, the consuming desire for knowledge--what does all this point to, if not to the loss of myth, the loss of the mythical home, the mythical maternal womb?

Like racism, sexism is one of the great justifications for high female unemployment rates. Many women are “just housewives” because in reality they are unemployed workers. Cannot, therefore, the “just housewife” role be most effectively challenged by demanding jobs for women on a level of equality with men and by pressing for the social services (child care, for example) and job benefits (maternity leaves, etc.) which will allow more women to work outside the home?

When ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) claims that home birth and midwives are unsafe, they imply that the women who choose it and the midwives that provide it are acting irresponsibly and selfishly. They stigmatize normal birth just as the political right has stigmatized abortion. And they stigmatize women. "Our country has created a mythology of women who are irresponsible and don't care," says Paltrow. "We talk about welfare queens, crack moms, and murderous women who have abortions." A culture that allows such language to permeate our national subconscious inevitably dehumanizes all women, including mothers. Lyon argues that this thinking perpetuates a phrase often invoked in exam rooms and delivery rooms: The goal is to have a healthy baby. "This phrase is used over and over and over to shut down women's requests," she says. "The context needs to be that the goal is a healthy mom. Because mothers never make decisions without thinking about that healthy baby. And to suggest otherwise is insulting and degrading and disrespectful." What's best for women is best for babies. ... The goal is to have a healthy family.

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire on the vital questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home. Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up.

Women are no longer required to be chaste or modest, to restrict their sphere of activity to the home, or even to realize their properly feminine destiny in maternity. Normative femininity [that is, the rules for being a good woman] is coming more and more to be centered on women’s body—not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, more precisely, its presumed heterosexuality and its appearance. . . . The woman who checks her makeup half a dozen times a day to see if her foundation has caked or her mascara has run, who worries that the wind or the rain may spoil her hairdo, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the ankle, or who, feeling fat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as surely as the inmate of Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self committed to a relentless self-surveillance. This self-surveillance is a form of obedience to patriarchy.

A cowboy is someone who loves his work. Since the hours are long—ten to fifteen hours a day—and the pay is $30 he has to. What's required of him is an odd mixture of physical vigor and maternalism. His part of the beef-raising industry is to birth and nurture calves and take care of their mothers. For the most part his work is done on horseback and in a lifetime he sees and comes to know more animals than people. The iconic myth surrounding him is built on American notions of heroism: the index of a man's value as measured in physical courage. Such ideas have perverted manliness into a self-absorbed race for cheap thrills. In a rancher's world, courage has less to do with facing danger than with acting spontaneously—usually on behalf of an animal or another rider. If a cow is stuck in a bog hole he throws a loop around her neck, takes his dally (a half hitch around the saddle horn), and pulls her out with horsepower. If a calf is born sick, he may take her home, warm her in front of the kitchen fire, and massage her legs until dawn. One friend, whose favorite horse was trying to swim a lake with hobbles on, dove under water and cut her legs loose with a knife, then swam her to shore, his arm around her neck lifeguard-style, and saved her from drowning. Because these incidents are usually linked to someone or something outside himself, the westerner's courage is selfless, a form of compassion.

Unwed white girls who became pregnant in the postwar years were considered psychologically disturbed but treatable, whereas their black counterparts were presumed to be biologically hypersexual and deviant. Historian Rickie Solinger demonstrates that in the 1950s an unwed white girl who became pregnant could go to a maternity home before her pregnancy showed, deliver the baby and give it up for adoption, and return home to her community with no one the wiser. (White parents concocted stories of their daughters being given the opportunity to study for a semester with relatives.) She could then resume the role of the "nice" girl. Unwed pregnant black girls, on the other hand, were barred from maternity homes; they were threatened with jail or termination of welfare; and they were accused of using their sexuality in order to be eligible for larger welfare checks. Politicians regarded unwed pregnant black girls as a societal problem, declaring--as they continue to declare today--that they did not want taxpayers to support black illegitimate babies, and sought to control black female sexuality through sterilization legislation.

According to my file, I was abandoned on the steps of the children’s home in Telbury with a birth certificate tucked inside the shawl. The certificate stated my name, date of birth, and place of birth—which was Aldabury Maternity Hospital—and my birth mother’s name and address. All I have is my first name and date and place of birth. Everything else regarding my birth mother on the certificate seems to be false.

The French magazine Parents says that if a baby is scared of strangers, his mother should warn him that a visitor will be coming over soon. Then, when the doorbell rings, ‘Tell him that the guest is here. Take a few seconds before opening the door . . . if he doesn’t cry when he sees the stranger, don’t forget to congratulate him.’ I hear of several cases where, upon bringing a baby home from the maternity hospital, the parents give the baby a tour of the house.9 French parents often tell babies what they’re doing to them: I’m picking you up, I’m changing your nappy, I’m going to give you a bath. This isn’t just to make soothing sounds; it’s to convey information. And since the baby is a person like any other, parents are often quite polite about all this. (Plus it’s apparently never too early to start instilling good manners.)

At first Christ was a man – nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David. Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death. The claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven. It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men. If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner? Is Christ our example? He never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich. Lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor. Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music – nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of maternity. He never married. He wandered homeless from place to place with a few disciples. None of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business, and they seem to have lived on alms. All human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the next; all human effort was discouraged. God would support and protect. At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions; he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may do the work of the world.

I find it quite beyond me to describe what this woman was to me. We talk fine things about women, but in our hearts we know that they are limited beings—most of them. We honor them for their functional powers, even while we dishonor them by our use of it; we honor them for their carefully enforced virtue, even while we show by our own conduct how little we think of that virtue; we value them, sincerely, for the perverted maternal activities which make wives the most comfortable of servants, bound to us for life with the wages wholly at our decision, their whole business, outside of the temporary duties of such motherhood as they may achieve, to meet our needs in every way. Oh, we value them, all right, “in their place,” which place is the home, where they perform that mixture of duties so ably described by Mrs. Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, in which the services of “a mistress “ are carefully specified.

I find it quite beyond me to describe what this woman was to me. We talk fine things about women, but in our hearts we know that they are limited beings—most of them. We honor them for their functional powers, even while we dishonor them by our use of it; we honor them for their carefully enforced virtue, even while we show by our own conduct how little we think of that virtue; we value them, sincerely, for the perverted maternal activities which make wives the most comfortable of servants, bound to use for life with the wages wholly at our decision, their whole business, outside of the temporary duties of such motherhood as they may achieve, to meet our needs in every way. Oh, we value them, all right, “in their place,” which place is the home, where they perform that mixture of duties so ably described by Mrs. Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, in which the services of “a mistress “ are carefully specified.

A profound depression came upon her. These were the moments in a mother's life about which nobody ever warned you, about which everybody kept a deceitful silence, the fine books and the speakers who had so much to say about the sacredness of maternity. They never told you that there were moments of arid clear sight when you saw helplessly that your children would never measure up to your standard, never would be really close to you, because they were not your kind of human beings, because they were not your children, but merely other human beings for whom you were responsible. How solitary it made you feel!

I waited for the moment when I would realize this was something I wanted and it never arrived. Andy kept telling me that no one is ever ready to have a baby and that it will always feel terrifying. The more he said this, the more resentful I became. The risk felt so much higher for me and it wasn’t something he would ever truly acknowledge. This baby’s life would rely on my maternity leave, my savings, my body, my career. I would have to make all the sacrifice while Andy’s life could continue mostly as normal. He disingenuously offered to give up comedy and be a stay-at-home dad. We both knew that would never happen.

Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she'd had any pain and that hen she swore and groaned she really didn't know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, hen all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.

Modern life favors work, social engagement, travel, and the development of a career over the needs of home. We're expected to override the complaints of the soul for stability and security, so that we can move without hindrance into an exciting and fulfilling future. We see homesickness as a childish malady, inappropriate in the mature adult, who needs to keep home in perspective and become increasingly independent. But the soul always complains when it has been slighted, and the emotional sicknesses associated with modern life show that the spirit of home has been violated. Aimlessness, boredom, and irresponsibility are common problems, and they may be traced back to a loss of home. All signs indicate that our society is suffering from profound homesickness. The soul's need for home has to do not only with shelter and a house, but with more subtle forms, like the feeling that one is living in the right place, being around people who offer a sense of belonging, doing work that is truly appropriate, feeling maternally protected and enlivened by the natural world, and belonging to a nation and a world community. These larger sources of home ask for our attention and commitment, but they also have gifts for the heart, and each one of them contribute to the enchantment of everyday existence.

We cannot pick and choose whom among the oppressed it is convenient to support. We must stand with all the oppressed or none of the oppressed. This is a global fight for life against corporate tyranny. We will win only when we see the struggle of working people in Greece, Spain, and Egypt as our own struggle. This will mean a huge reordering of our world, one that turns away from the primacy of profit to full employment and unionized workplaces, inexpensive and modernized mass transit, especially in impoverished communities, universal single-payer health care and a banning of for-profit health care corporations. The minimum wage must be at least $15 an hour and a weekly income of $500 provided to the unemployed, the disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and those unable to work. Anti-union laws, like the Taft-Hartley Act, and trade agreements such as NAFTA, will be abolished. All Americans will be granted a pension in old age. A parent will receive two years of paid maternity leave, as well as shorter work weeks with no loss in pay and benefits. The Patriot Act and Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the military to be used to crush domestic unrest, as well as government spying on citizens, will end. Mass incarceration will be dismantled. Global warming will become a national and global emergency. We will divert our energy and resources to saving the planet through public investment in renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels. Public utilities, including the railroads, energy companies, the arms industry, and banks, will be nationalized. Government funding for the arts, education, and public broadcasting will create places where creativity, self-expression, and voices of dissent can be heard and seen. We will terminate our nuclear weapons programs and build a nuclear-free world. We will demilitarize our police, meaning that police will no longer carry weapons when they patrol our streets but instead, as in Great Britain, rely on specialized armed units that have to be authorized case by case to use lethal force. There will be training and rehabilitation programs for the poor and those in our prisons, along with the abolition of the death penalty. We will grant full citizenship to undocumented workers. There will be a moratorium on foreclosures and bank repossessions. Education will be free from day care to university. All student debt will be forgiven. Mental health care, especially for those now caged in our prisons, will be available. Our empire will be dismantled. Our soldiers and marines will come home.

Like so many other things in the previous year, my politics had also been retooled by maternity. I began to suspect that modern feminism had gotten it at least partly wrong. . . . In devaluing the home and the vast range of domestic work--childrearing included--and in fighting a fight largely for the right to work outside the home, the modern feminist movement ignored a singular power already available to women and, maybe more important, to the collective imagination. Rather than fighting to re-invent the home, or to effect a real transformation of values, or to legitimize and legalize the domestic and childrearing work that so many women engage in--which is necessary to support any mother's work outside the home--we have found it easier to map power where it already existed. Is this really my only choice? Between the intense demands of an academic career (supported by full-time childcare) and the mind-deadening contemplation of Cheerios?

But he refused to answer when addressed in English and forbade the speaking of English in his home. His daughters understood very little German. (Their mother insisted that the girls speak only English in the home. She reasoned that the less they understood German, the less they would find out about the cruelty of their father.) Consequently, the four daughters grew up having little communion with their father. He never spoke to them except to curse them. His Gott verdammte came to be regarded as hello and good-bye. When very angry, he’d call the object of his temper, Du Russe! This he considered his most obscene expletive. He hated Austria. He hated America. Most of all he hated Russia. He had never been to that country and had never laid eyes on a Russian. No one understood his hatred of that dimly known country and its vaguely known people. This was the man who was Francie’s maternal grandfather. She hated him the way his daughters hated him. *

As painful as it was, reading about sexual violence toward Black women and girls helped me with necessary creative depictions. My book could not have been written without Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye as well as Beloved, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple—this last book is so special to me because Ms. Walker is a native of Eatonton, Georgia, the home of my maternal ancestors. (My mother was one of Ms. Walker’s teachers.) My mother—Trellie James Jeffers—published an early germinal essay about colorism in the Black community, “The Black Black Woman and the Black Middle Class,” which allowed me to witness (vicariously) intra-racist sexism in African American communities. Another essay by her, “From the Old Slave Shack: Memoirs of a Teacher,” offers historical background about Mama’s experiences attending segregated schools in Eatonton, Georgia, in the 1930s and 1940s, before attending Spelman College in 1951.

answered Jo, who now spoke in a maternal way of all mankind. "Yes, I remember, but the life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely, and cold to me now. I haven't given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I'm sure it will be all the better for such experiences and illustrations as these," and Jo pointed from the lively lads in the distance to her father, leaning on the Professor's arm, as they walked to and fro in the sunshine, deep in one of the conversations which both enjoyed so much, and then to her mother, sitting enthroned among her daughters, with their children in her lap and at her feet, as if all found help and happiness in the face which never could grow old to them. "My castle was the most nearly realized of all. I asked for splendid things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these. I've got them all, thank God, and am the happiest woman in the world," and Meg laid her hand on her tall boy's head, with a face full of tender and devout content.

After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys. But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car. ‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.

I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago. Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before. “What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded. Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise. “You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.” “I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.” I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was. I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy. “Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.” “I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said. I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together. “Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift. Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore. “Are you crying?” he asked. “No,” I said, my lip quivering. “Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to. “I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.” We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.

Daniel had given her a pair of sapphire earrings, so she made out well. The women he attracted were gold diggers, but he didn't mind. They met his needs without any sort of commitment. When he needed a date, he had a large list of beautiful women to choose from. These young, gorgeous models kept themselves available because they were lavished in finer things. On occasion, he'd sense some maternal instinct rearing its ugly head and go running. Daniel drove home exhausted. It was four in the morning, but he had to make sure he had a date for tonight's

One result of active imagination, according to some reports, is an increase in synchronistic and paranormal phenomena. 32 This was certainly true of Jung. In 1916, Jung again felt that something within wanted to get out. An eerie restlessness seemed to permeate his home. Jung, I have to say, was lucky to have his house in Küsnacht, where he retired to a room, his “intellectual cave,” decorated in colored glass, to commune with his interior voices; he demanded and got absolute silence, and neither his children nor Emma—nor even the maid—were allowed to enter.33 As his maternal grandfather did, Jung felt the presence of the dead. His children seemed to feel it, too. One daughter saw a strange white figure; another had her blankets snatched from her at night. His son drew a picture of a fisherman he had seen in a dream: a flaming chimney rose from the fisherman’s head, and a devil flew through the air, cursing the fisherman for stealing his fish. An angel warned the devil that he couldn’t hurt the fisherman because he only caught bad fish. Jung had yet to mention Philemon the Kingfisher to his family. Then, on a Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang loudly when it was clear no one was there. The pressure increased and Jung finally demanded “What in the world is this?” Then he heard the voices. “We have come back from Jerusalem,” they said, “where we found not what we sought,” the beginning of one of the strangest works of “automatic writing,” Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead, which he attributed to “Basilides in Alexandria, the City where the East toucheth the West.

Activity pouch on airplanes Buttons and pins Crayons and coloring place mats from restaurants Disposable sample cup from the grocery store Erasers and pencils with eraser tops Fireman hat from a visit to the fire station Goodie bags from county fairs and festivals Hair comb from picture day at school Infant goods from the maternity ward Junior ranger badge from the ranger station and Smokey the Bear Kids’ meal toys Lollipops and candy from various locations, such as the bank Medals and trophies for simply participating in (versus winning) a sporting activity Noisemakers to celebrate New Year’s Eve OTC samples from the doctor’s office Party favors and balloons from birthday parties Queen’s Jubilee freebies (for overseas travelers) Reusable plastic “souvenir” cup and straw from a diner Stickers from the doctor’s office Toothbrushes and floss from the dentist’s office United States flags on national holidays Viewing glasses for a 3-D movie (why not keep one pair and reuse them instead?) Water bottles at sporting events XYZ, etc.: The big foam hand at a football or baseball game or Band-Aids after a vaccination or various newspapers, prospectuses, and booklets from school, museums, national parks . . .

Study after study suggests that the pressure society places on women to stay home and do “what’s best for the child” is based on emotion, not evidence. In 1991, the Early Child Care Research Network, under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, initiated the most ambitious and comprehensive study to date on the relationship between child care and child development, and in particular on the effect of exclusive maternal care versus child care. The Research Network, which comprised more than thirty child development experts from leading universities across the country, spent eighteen months designing the study. They tracked more than one thousand children over the course of fifteen years, repeatedly assessing the children’s cognitive skills, language abilities, and social behaviors. Dozens of papers have been published about what they found.23 In 2006, the researchers released a report summarizing their findings, which concluded that “children who were cared for exclusively by their mothers did not develop differently than those who were also cared for by others.”24 They found no gap in cognitive skills, language competence, social competence, ability to build and maintain relationships, or in the quality of the mother-child bond.25 Parental behavioral factors—including fathers who are responsive and positive, mothers who favor “self-directed child behavior,” and parents with emotional intimacy in their marriages—influence a child’s development two to three times more than any form of child care.26 One of the findings is worth reading slowly, maybe even twice: “Exclusive maternal care was not related to better or worse outcomes for children. There is, thus, no reason for mothers to feel as though they are harming their children if they decide to work.

Perhaps you think that it is important to your child’s personal growth to bake goods in your house. More power to you, my sister. I will defend your right to bake your brownies, I will march for your right to home-bake whatever you damn well want to home-bake. But I will take off my earrings and ask someone to hold my purse for the verbal beat-down we will need to engage in if you try to tell me that I must define my motherhood in the same terms as yours. There’s room enough for everybody here. This is a big, big maternity tent. If I want to buy my brownies from Costco and drop them off in a wrinkled brown paper bag still wrapped in the plastic and foil container with the orange price sticker still attached, guess what? That’s how it’s gonna go down. Suck it, judgies. I am not telling you to do it that way. You go bake your ass off. But we all have to acknowledge that our way is not the way.

two and a half,’ Jack was saying. ‘And?’ she muttered, half asleep and not really paying attention. ‘I was just thinking,’ Jack went on, his voice coming to her almost like a lullaby. ‘Maybe we should begin to think about another one.’ ‘Another one?’ Stella repeated sleepily. Then she was suddenly wide awake. ‘A child, you mean?’ She felt Jack nod, his head brushing her own, then she heard him chuckle. ‘Of course a child! We haven’t got a dog or a goldfish, thank God.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘It’d be just over a three-year gap, if you got pregnant right away, like you did with Jonny.’ Stella looked up at him, his face just visible in the glow from the streetlight filtering through the calico blinds. They had always wanted a second child. Neither she nor Jack had siblings and they both felt they’d missed out. Stella didn’t want Jonny growing up with the sort of maternal monitoring – the need to be perfect because you’re the only one – that had blighted her own childhood. ‘He’ll need someone to visit the nursing home with, when we both go dotty,’ Jack said. Which made them laugh in disbelief that they could ever be old, let alone demented.

black women were working all day (often scrubbing the homes of white women), it was impossible for them also to fulfill the at-home maternal ideal for which white women were being celebrated. If black men had a harder time getting educations and jobs, earning competitive wages or securing loans, it was harder for them to play the role of provider. If there were no government-subsidized split-levels to fill with publicly educated children, then the nuclear family chute into which white women were being funneled was not open to most black women. There simply weren’t the same incentives to marrying early or at all; there were fewer places to safely put down roots and fewer resources with which to nourish them. It

New Yorkers and Texans get along so well. They have those same outsize personalities, that determination and passion, that “don’t mess with me” quality. And they have the same law my maternal grandmother would tell me from the time I was a little boy: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Self-reliance, confidence. I really believe those lyrics, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” In Texas, we have something we call “the Cortez moment,” which refers to when the great Spanish explorer and conquistador of Mexico came and set up camp and then burned his boats. The phrase “burn the boats” means there’s nothing but forward, onward, no turning back or running home scared. It’s a motto for New York as much as for Texas. When you move here, if you’re any good at all, you burn the boats. (from My First New York)

Life would be much nicer if one could carry the smells and tastes of the maternal home wherever one pleased.

If WHO statistics were to be believed, the U.S. had the worst maternal mortality in the industrialized world.

Last year, one of the third-grade teachers had returned to school following her maternity leave and quit for good a month later. “It turns out I can be nice at work or nice at home,” the teacher told Jane. “Not both.

Their thesis in this book is that the advice given to American women by male health professionals, particularly in the areas of marital sex, maternity, and child care, has echoed the dictates of the economic marketplace and the role capitalism has needed women to play in production and/or reproduction. Women have become the consumer victims of various cures, therapies, and normative judgements in different periods (including the prescription to middle-class women to embody and preserve the sacredness of the home—the “scientific” romanticiza-tion of the home itself). None of the “experts’” advice has been either particularly scientific or women-oriented; it has reflected male needs, male fantasies about women, and male interest in controlling women—particularly in the realms of sexuality and motherhood—fused with the require-ments of industrial capitalism.

And whose very snug-looking place is this? said Charlotte as, in a sheltered dip within two miles of the sea, they passed close by a moderate-sized house, well fenced and planted, and rich in the garden, orchard and meadows which are the best embellishments of such a dwelling. (This is basically the description of my maternal great grandparents on Prince Edward Island who lived closer to the sea than two miles. <3)

Despite her admonition not to start fights, our unspoken honor code made it easy to convince someone else to start a fight for you. If you really wanted to get into it with someone, all you needed to do was insult his mom. No amount of self-control could withstand a well-played maternal criticism. “Your mom’s so fat that her ass has its own zip code”; “Your mom’s such a hillbilly that her false teeth have cavities”; or a simple “Yo’ mama!” These were fighting words, whether you wanted them to be or not. To shirk from avenging a string of insults was to lose your honor, your dignity, or even your friends. It was to go home and be afraid to tell your family that you had disgraced them.

Motherhood is a tricky business. And like all jobs, we each bring different skill sets to the table. So there are women out there who are better moms because they work. And there are moms who want to be at home, should be at home, and absolutely bask in the glow of all things maternal and sweet. And then there are the rest of us—struggling for the right answers, because what seems like the right answer one day only stands you on your head the next.

One evening Steve and I didn’t feel like cooking, and we had ordered a pizza. I noticed that I was a bit leaky, but when you are enormously pregnant, all kinds of weird things happen with your body. I didn’t pay any particular attention. The next day I called the hospital. “You should come right in,” the nurse told me over the phone. Steve was fairly nearby, on the Gold Coast south of Brisbane, filming bull sharks. I won’t bother him, I thought. I’ll just go in for a quick checkup. “If everything checks out okay,” I told them at the hospital, “I’ll just head back.” The nurse looked to see if I was serious. She laughed. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “You’re having a baby.” I called Steve. He came up from the Gold Coast as quickly as he could, after losing his car keys, not remembering where he parked, and forgetting which way home was in his excitement. When he arrived at the hospital, I saw that he had brought the whole camera crew with him. John was just as flustered as anyone but suggested we film the event. “It’s okay with me,” Steve said. I was in no mood to argue. I didn’t care if a spaceship landed on the hospital. Each contraction took every bit of my attention. When they finally wheeled me into the delivery room at about eight o’clock that night, I was so tired I didn’t know how I could go on. Steve proved to be a great coach. He encouraged me as though it were a footy game. “You can do it, babe,” he yelled. “Come on, push!” At 9:46 p.m., a little head appeared. Steve was beside himself with excitement. I was in a fog, but I clearly remember the joy on his face. He helped turn and lift the baby out. I heard both Steve and doctor announce simultaneously, “It’s a girl.” Six pounds and two ounces of little baby girl. She was early but she was fine. All pink and perfect. Steve cut the umbilical cord and cradled her, gazing down at his newborn daughter. “Look, she’s our little Bindi.” She was named after a crocodile at the zoo, and it also fit that the word “bindi” was Aboriginal for “young girl.” Here was our own young girl, our little Bindi. I smiled up at Steve. “Bindi Sue,” I said, after his beloved dog, Sui. Steve gently handed her to me. We both looked down at her in utter amazement. He suddenly scooped her up in the towels and blankets and bolted off. “I’ve got a baby girl!” he yelled, as he headed down the hall. The doctor and midwives were still attending to me. After a while, one of the midwives said nervously, “So, is he coming back?” I just laughed. I knew what Steve was doing. He was showing off his beautiful baby girl to the whole maternity ward, even though each and every new parent had their own bundle of joy. Steve was such a proud parent. He came back and laid Bindi beside me. I said, “I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been here.” “Yes, you could have.” “No, I really needed you here.” Once again, I had that overwhelming feeling that as long as we were together, everything would be safe and wonderful. I watched Bindi as she stared intently at her daddy with dark, piercing eyes. He gazed back at her and smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks, with such great love for his new daughter. The world had a brand-new wildlife warrior.

Surprised at Kaye’s belated display of maternal instincts, Sean relented, promising he’d get in touch with Lily. Besides, he knew his own mother would never forgive him if he refused such a simple request. As he made his way down the narrow streets to the pensione opposite the Pantheon, where Lily and her roommate were staying, Sean steadfastly refused to acknowledge any other reason for agreeing to take Lily out. It had been three years since they’d left for college, not once had she come home to visit. But Sean still couldn’t look at a blonde without comparing her to Lily. He’d mounted the four flights of narrow, winding stairs, the sound of his steps muffled by red, threadbare carpet. At number seventeen, he’d stopped and stood, giving his racing heart a chance to quiet before he knocked. Calm down, he’d instructed himself. It’s only Lily. His knock echoed loudly in the empty hall. Through the door he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Then it opened and there she was. She stood with her mouth agape. Her eyes, like beacons of light in the obscurity of the drab hallway, blinked at him with astonishment. “What are you doing here?” The question ended on a squeak. As if annoyed with the sound, she shut her mouth with an audible snap. Was it possible Kaye hadn’t bothered to tell Lily he’d be coming? “I heard you were spending a few days in Rome.” Sean realized he was staring like a dolt, but couldn’t help himself. It rattled him, seeing Lily again. A barrage of emotions and impressions mixed and churned inside him: how good she looked, different somehow, more self-confident than in high school, how maybe this time they might get along for more than 3.5 seconds. He became aware of a happy buzz of anticipation zinging through him. He was already picturing the two of them at a really nice trattoria. They’d be sitting at an intimate corner table. A waiter would come and take their order and Sean would impress her with his flawless Italian, his casual sophistication, his sprezzatura. By the time the waiter had served them their dessert and espresso, she’d be smiling at him across the soft candlelight. He’d reach out and take her hand. . . . Then Lily spoke again and Sean’s neat fantasy evaporated like a puff of smoke. “But how did you know I was here?” she’d asked, with what he’d conceitedly assumed was genuine confusion—that is, until a guy their age appeared. Standing just behind Lily, he had stared back at Sean through the aperture of the open door with a knowing smirk upon his face. And suddenly Sean understood. Lily wasn’t frowning from confusion. She was annoyed. Annoyed because he’d barged in on her and Lover Boy. Lily didn’t give a damn about him. At the realization, his jumbled thoughts at seeing her again, all those newborn hopes inside him, faded to black. His brain must have shorted after that. Suave, sophisticated guy that he was, Sean had blurted out, “Hey, this wasn’t my idea. I only came because Kaye begged me to—” Stupendously dumb. He knew better, had known since he was eight years old. If you wanted to push Lily Banyon into the red zone, all it took was a whispered, “Kaye.” The door to her hotel room had come at his face faster than a bullet train. He guessed he should be grateful she hadn’t been using a more lethal weapon, like the volleyball she’d smashed in his face during gym class back in eleventh grade. Even so, he’d been forced to jump back or have the number seventeen imprinted on his forehead. Their last skirmish, the one back in Rome, he’d definitely lost. He’d stood outside her room like a fool, Lover Boy’s laughter his only reply. Finally, the pensione’s night clerk had appeared, insisting he leave la bella americana in peace. He’d gone away, humiliated and oddly deflated.

Encara avui podem trobar comunitats matriarcals, encara que són poques. Una d'elles, amb una població de vint-i-cinc mil persones, viu a l'aldea dels Mosuo, al sud-oest de la Xina. Allà les dones tenen el poder, però els homes no es queixen: tenen poques responsabilitats i treballen menys que elles. L'herència es transmet de mare a filla i el cognom de la dona identifica els llaços sanguinis. Elles ordenen i administren el destí dels seus parents més pròxims, i no s'equiparen als homes perquè això representaria perdre categoria social. En aquesta cultura no existeix el matrimoni; el grup social està format per dona, els seus fills, la seva mare, els seus germans, les seves germanes i els fills d'aquestes. La figura del pare no és important, però no per desinterès sinó com a tret social. És l'oncle matern qui ajuda a criar els nens. Tant els homes com les dones canvien d'amant amb freqüència. Quan a la nit es reuneix el grup, al voltant del foc, és la dona qui convida l'home a compartir el llit amb ella. A la parella no l'uneixen ni els diners ni els fills. Si es mantenen junts durant un temps és només per afecte. En aquesta aldea únicament les dones tenen la possibilitat de fer estudis universitaris perquè són considerades més intel·ligents i dotades per als estudis. Els homes treballen en tasques que no requereixen l'ús de la intel·ligència i es passen el temps jugant al Majong. Els diners han de demanar-los a la seva mare o germana. Com en altres comunitats matriarcals, no hi ha violència, el bon tracte i l'hospitalitat són corrents.

A post at St Polycarp’s. I was getting quite bored being at home all day.’ ‘When do you start?’ ‘Next month. I’m replacing a teacher on maternity leave.’ I turn to Rufus. ‘Jack tells me you have a huge garden,’ I prompt and, while I serve more of the beef Wellington, which, along with the vegetables, has been keeping warm on a hotplate, the conversation around the table revolves around landscaping rather

Always,’ said Evie and Max together. Points for harmony. In truth, in the six years she’d known him, Max had barely mentioned his mother other than to say she’d never been the maternal type and that she set exceptionally high standards for everything; be it a manicure or the behaviour of her husbands or her sons. ‘No engagement ring?’ queried Caroline with the lift of an elegant eyebrow. ‘Ah, no,’ said Evie. ‘Not yet. There was so much choice I, ah...couldn’t decide.’ ‘Indeed,’ said Caroline, before turning to Max. ‘I can, of course, make an appointment for you with my jeweller this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll have something more than suitable. That way Evie will have a ring on her finger when she attends the cocktail party I’m hosting for the pair of you tonight.’ ‘You didn’t have to fuss,’ said Max as he set their overnight cases just inside the door beside a wide staircase. ‘Introducing my soon-to-be daughter-in-law to family and friends is not fuss,’ said Max’s mother reprovingly. ‘It’s expected, and so is a ring. Your brother’s here, by the way.’ ‘You summoned him home as well?’ ‘He came of his own accord,’ she said dryly. ‘No one makes your brother do anything.’ ‘He’s my role model,’ whispered Max as they followed the doyenne of the house down the hall. ‘I need a cocktail dress,’ Evie whispered back. ‘Get it when I go ring hunting. What kind of stone do you want?’ ‘Diamond.’ ‘Colour?’ ‘White.’ ‘An excellent choice,’ said Caroline from up ahead and Max grinned ruefully. ‘Ears like a bat,’ he said in his normal deep baritone. ‘Whisper like a foghorn,’ his mother cut back, and surprised Evie by following up with a deliciously warm chuckle. The house was a beauty. Twenty-foot ceilings and a modern renovation that complemented the building’s Victorian bones. The wood glowed with beeswax shine and the air carried the scent of old-English roses. ‘Did you do the renovation?’ asked Evie and her dutiful fiancé nodded. ‘My first project after graduating.’ ‘Nice work,’ she said as Caroline ushered them into a large sitting room that fed seamlessly through to a wide, paved garden patio.

At the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), we have worked with our international affiliate in Pakistan to combat the egregious international crimes that spring from this and other bigoted and intolerant cultures. One of our more high-profile cases revolves around Parwasha, an eight-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan whom Muslim men attacked in the public streets. Why? Because of the honor and shame culture. Here’s what happened. Parwasha’s maternal uncle, Iftikhar Masih, was visiting his Muslim girlfriend, Samina, late one night at her home. Interreligious romantic relationships are not accepted in Pakistan, largely due to the Muslim faith and the surrounding culture impacted by being predominantly Muslim. Therefore the girlfriend’s Muslim family was furious. Parwasha’s uncle admitted to the relationship and explained that he was invited over. But this did nothing to assuage the dishonor felt by Samina’s family, who called the village elders’ council. The family lied, telling the council that Iftikhar had robbed their house the night before and stolen a lot of money. Iftikhar told the council the true story. But the Muslim family decided that their honor had been besmirched. In their minds, the only way to correct this would be by humiliating a woman in the Christian family. So when young Parwasha was walking home from school the next day, they kidnapped her, stripped her naked, beat her, and left her in the streets. When Parwasha’s family sought help from the village elders (who were Muslim), they didn’t respond. When Parwasha’s grandfather went to the police station to file charges, he discovered that the Muslim family had already filed trumped-up charges against his family, charging them with assaulting and shaming Samina. The local police arrested members of Parwasha’s family and detained them until the village elders’ council could work everything out between the Muslim and Christian families. The council determined that the Christian family would have to sell its property and leave the area within thirty days. This is a common punishment doled out to non-Muslim families who are targeted by Muslims angry at them for any given reason.

Although home births are considered countercultural by many in the United States, there is no evidence base to discourage low risk couples who desire a carefully planned out-ofthe-hospital birth

Most commitment companies avoided layoffs unless there was no other alternative. They invested heavily in training. There were higher levels of teamwork and psychological safety. Commitment companies might not have had lavish cafeterias, but they offered generous maternity leaves, daycare programs, and work-from-home options.

As the profession of social work evolved, it became a common practice to describe unmarried mothers in psychiatric terms. The unmarried mother was no longer viewed as having “bad blood,” but instead as a criminal needing correction or as a “girl” needing “a cure” for her neurosis. In other words, the mother as sick, but her soon-to-be-born baby was not. Once unmarried mothers were no longer viewed as having genetic deficiencies - the “bad blood” that could be passed on to their children - their babies became highly adoptable. Hastings Hornell Hart, an ordained pastor with a national reputation in penology and prison reform, described the standard procedure for admitting an unmarried mother to a maternity home and referring to her and the home’s “inmates” as “homeless and wayward white girls and women” who came from any part of the United States, who required physical examinations to detect the presence of venereal disease, who could be used to do the chores and thus save money for the institution, which was maintained  for the care of “inmates” by public monies from the District Board of Charities (Hart, 1924).

working for him while I was on maternity leave, but he was almost impossible to talk to despite the amount of time we spent together. I’d traveled with him to Switzerland, Dubai, and China, as well as New York and Chicago. When we were home, we spent time visiting sites all over Denver. And during car and airplane rides, hotel stays, business dinners, and site visits, Elliot had remained a wall of marble, so smooth and impenetrable, everything rolled off him. I was back at my desk, sipping water from the giant jug I drank from all day when Elliot strode toward me. I tucked my jug by my feet and straightened my spine. “Good morning, Elliot.” “Catherine.” He breezed by me without looking up from his phone. And Davida and Raymond wondered how it was he hadn’t noticed my pregnancy. He barely noticed me as long as I got the job done. I followed him into his office with my notebook and handwritten schedule, which I slid to the middle of his desk. As always, he shifted it a fraction of an inch. Probably used the lasers in his cyborg brain to find the exact center. I took a seat across from him, holding my notebook in front of my stomach.

maternity, and “other size" items to another storage space, such as under the bed or in the basement. Many people can reduce the amount of clothing in their closet by half if they follow this guideline. 2. EMPTY, QUICK-TOSS & SORT Make space to spread everything out. (A bed works great for this.) You’ll be taking out every item in the closet, dresser drawers, and anything else that contains clothing. As you take things out, check the quick-toss list to see what can be placed immediately into the trash. Because of the sheer enormity of some people’s clothing collections, it is okay to start the declutter phase in tandem with the emptying phase. If something triggers an immediate “toss it!” reaction, it’s okay to place it into the donation box right away. As you sort, separate into work and casual wear by item type, then group similar items by color. Button-down shirts, dress pants, blazers, dresses, skirts, etc. should all be batched together so you can quickly see what you have and assess its placement. Make a separate pile for each category of casual clothing, such as pants, t-shirts, shorts, yoga/sweatpants, and sweatshirts. Also group together shoes, belts, and accessories. Once the closet is empty, give it a good vacuuming and dusting, and wipe down any shelves in the closet and inside drawers. 3. DECLUTTER

Cherokees had a matrilineal society, a social system in which their descent was traced strictly through their mother's side of the family. In the Cherokees' matrilineal kinship system a person received his mother's clan at birth and retained this clan for life, and his only kinsmen were those who could be traced through her; that is her mother's mother, mother's sisters, the children of mother's sisters and, the most important and powerful man in a child's life, the mother's brother. This social structure baffled whites. ^J.' he primary responsibility for discipline and instruction in hunting and warfare rested not with the child's father but with his maternal uncle. Not even the right of the father to stay in the home was certain because Cherokee women owned the dwellings.

have shown in the previous chapter that Améry mourns the loss of home(land) and of (maternal/native) language. At the same time, the traumatic experience of that loss is also “revelatory” because it becomes for Améry primary to ever having had, or “possessed,” language, or ever having been at home in the place from which he was violently expatriated. Finally, that testimony, and a kind of mourning resembles a “conjuration.” It is a textual act of recalling from the past an impossible homely belonging; one that is always-already known as broken, or as irreversibly damaged. Améry’s witnessing as a performance of conjuration of the “ghostly” home and mother tongue inspires a critical approach to

Giovanni, in love with her unabashed feminine strength and her reconciliation of love and revolution. I spent nearly every waking moment around Nikki, and I loved her dearly. But sibling relationships are often fraught with petty tortures. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But I had. At the time, I couldn’t understand my mother’s anger. I mean this wasn’t really a woman I was punching. This was Nikki. She could take it. Years would pass before I understood how that blow connected to my mom’s past. My mother came to the United States at the age of three. She was born in Lowe River in the tiny parish of Trelawny, Jamaica, hours away from the tourist traps that line the coast. Its swaths of deep brush and arable land made it great for farming but less appealing for honeymoons and hedonism. Lowe River was quiet, and remote, and it was home for my mother, her older brother Ralph, and my grandparents. My maternal great-grandfather Mas Fred, as he was known, would plant a coconut tree at his home in Mount Horeb, a neighboring area, for each of his kids and grandkids when they were born. My mom always bragged that hers was the tallest and strongest of the bunch. The land that Mas Fred and his wife, Miss Ros, tended had been cared for by our ancestors for generations. And it was home for my mom until her parents earned enough money to bring the family to the States to fulfill my grandfather’s dream of a theology degree from an American university. When my mom first landed in the Bronx, she was just a small child, but she was a survivor and learned quickly. She studied the other kids at school like an anthropologist, trying desperately to fit in. She started with the way she spoke. She diligently listened to the radio from the time she was old enough to turn it on and mimicked what she heard. She’d always pull back enough in her interactions with her classmates to give herself room to quietly observe them, so that when she got home she could practice imitating their accents, their idiosyncrasies, their style. Words like irie became cool. Constable became policeman. Easy-nuh became chill out. The melodic, swooping movement of her Jamaican patois was quickly replaced by the more stable cadences of American English. She jumped into the melting pot with both feet. Joy Thomas entered American University in Washington, D.C., in 1968, a year when she and her adopted homeland were both experiencing

The rest is fine,” said Gordon, taking a drag on his cigarette. “Just be careful with what comes first in the lead. That’s very important. You wrote, ‘This afternoon in his home on Pasaréti Street, using a revolver, the owner of the Arabia Coffee Company took his own life.’ The important thing is neither when nor where. But who. Thus: ‘The owner of the Arabia Coffee Company took his own life with a revolver this afternoon in his home on Pasaréti Street.’ And who he left his estate to, that doesn’t belong in the lead, either. It’s enough if you mention the maternity home only farther down. So then, go on back now and retype the article.

But, in my opinion, the most horrifying part of Anna’s experience isn’t what happens to her physically, but how the people around her react: how her doctors dismiss and ignore her, expecting her to suffer through her pain for the good of her baby without any concern for whether her body can handle it; how her husband assumes she’s either making up or exaggerating her symptoms. I’m afraid I didn’t have to exaggerate these reactions at all. They’re all too real. The tendency to assume that women can’t be trusted to accurately convey their symptoms comes from the historical diagnosis of “hysteria,” which was once thought to be a medical condition said to only affect women. Doctors were taught that women were inherently liars, unreliable, or hysterical hypochondriacs. In some cases, they were even believed to be possessed. And these beliefs have persisted, even after the diagnosis of hysteria was proven to be nonsense. To this day doctors prescribe less pain medication to women than they do to men, they take longer to diagnose us with illness, and they’re more likely to send us home in the middle of a medical emergency like a heart attack. Unfortunately, all these prejudices disproportionately affect women of color. If you’re ever curious about why the maternal mortality rate in the United States is so high—particularly among Black women—these are good places to start. Doctors don’t understand our bodies, they don’t believe us about our symptoms, and they ignore us when we try to tell them we’re in pain.

These two factors—childhood poverty and a single-parent household—are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. Growing up in a single-parent home roughly doubles a child’s propensity to commit crime. So does having a teenage mother. Another study has shown that low maternal education is the single most powerful factor leading to criminality.

[T]here is no question about society’s instinctive response to her plight. It is simply to ostracize her…she will probably be expelled from school…such swift action is not meted out to the unmarried school boy father…Says former U.S. Commissioner of Education, Lawrence Derthick, ‘Many school systems …are prevented by law from providing teachers…or making homebound programs available from public funds for unwed mothers…there is no way a girl can earn credits for any scholastic work she does during pregnancy…there is no way by which she can conceal the fact that the earning was done in a maternity home…

Among his peers, Pablo Guzmán had a unique upbringing. He graduated from one of New York’s premier academic high schools, Bronx Science, where students were engaged with the political debates of the day, from the Vietnam War to the meaning of black power, thanks to the influence of a history teacher. Guzmán had also been politicized by his Puerto Rican father and maternal grandfather, who was Cuban. Both saw themselves as members of the black diaspora in the Americas. The job discrimination and racist indignities they endured in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and in New York turned them into race men committed to the politics of black pride and racial uplift. When Guzmán was a teenager, his father took him to Harlem to hear Malcolm X speak.188 He also remembers that his Afro-Cuban grandfather, Mario Paulino, regularly convened meetings at his home to discuss world politics with a circle of friends, many of whom were likely connected through their experience at the Tuskegee Institute, the historic black American school of industrial training, to which Paulino had applied from Cuba and at which he enrolled in the early 1920s.189 Perhaps because of the strong black politics of his household, Guzmán identified strongly with the black American community, considered joining the BPP, and called himself “Paul.” His “field studies” in Cuernavaca, Mexico, during his freshman year at SUNY Old Westbury, however, awakened him to the significance of his Latin American roots.

Right in the middle of a pregnancy, Ebonie had left the country’s safest state for expectant mothers—where the mortality rate looked more like that of France or Germany—for one of its most dangerous. Her new home state, Texas, had the same maternal mortality rate as Mongolia.

[...] The revolution was left unfinished. The feminists of the sixties and seventies challenged the rigid division of labour between men and women; they wanted women to have access to the workplace, and men to rediscover their role at home. The psychotherapist Susie Orbach reflects on the thinking of the seventies: 'We wanted to challenge the whole distribution of work we wanted to put at the centre of everything the reproduction of daily life, but feminism got seduced by the work ethic. My generation wanted to change the values of the workplace so that it accepted family life.' This radical agenda for the reorganisation of work and home was abandoned in Britain. Instead we took on the American model of feminism, influenced by the rise of neo-liberalism and individualism. Feminism acquired shoulderpads and an appetite for power; it celebrated individual achievement rather than working out how to transform the separation between work and family, and the social processes of how we care for dependants and raise children. Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt remembers a turning point in the debate in the UK when she was at the National Council for Civil Liberties: 'The key moment was when we organised a major conference in the seventies with a lot of American speakers who were terrific feminists. When they arrived we were astonished that they were totally uninterested in an agenda around better maternity leave, etc. They argued that we couldn't claim special treatment in the workplace; women would simply prove they were equals. You couldn't make claims on the workplace. We thought it was appalling.

Xanthi came into my childhood in August of 1954, arriving at Union Station near the Chicago River, final stop in a transatlantic journey to help take care of me and my siblings in suburban Oak Park while Mom underwent treatment, such as it was in those days, for breast cancer metastases. Xanthi was a friend of my maternal grandmother’s, maybe even a distant relative. Didn’t matter to me as a four-year-old boy. Whoever she was related to, she left her home on the Peloponnesus to live with us for room and board and some money to send back home after a string of cataclysms bludgeoning Greece at the time.

As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal - and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach. Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest tasks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favour instead of doing his part.

When a woman is breastfeeding, the first and only thought that should appear in your mind is that the purpose of those breasts is to nourish a life, but if your mind gets either contemptuous or sexual instead, then go home and try to figure out if you are a human.

I come out of the home for the aged, get on my bicycle, and think to myself that even if there is a communal grave it will in future not be of archaeological significance. Nevertheless, I have finally visited my deceased maternal grandmother who once bought me a spinning top.

I don’t want to give up my home, the garden where I can remember planting every flower, the circle of stones that marks Paolo’s resting place, where he lies in an endless embrace with his sex bunny. But it isn’t mine to keep. I want to be fertile. I never want to expire. But death comes for us. What first? What else? What next? As everything else has fallen apart, what has stayed intact is something I always had, the thing that made me a writer: curiosity. Hope. 31 The night before I left, Africa was golden and pulsating in my mind. I emptied the wool socks and maternity jeans from my suitcase, which I had shoved under the bed when I got back from Mongolia. I

Els valors anomenats femenins són indispensables en l'esfera privada. L'estereotip de dona maternal, propera i comprensiva agrada a les societats dins de casa. Però, si han de sortir, ho hauran de fer amb les lleis dels homes.

As you may have discovered, there is no doubt that remote work has benefits. Commute times disappear. Operational costs get slashed. Bloated travel budgets are no longer imperative. Hiring and retaining employees without asking them to relocate from their home countries or domestic cities becomes conceivable, resolving global travel barriers. Astronomical real estate costs that exist in some locations have the potential to get reduced significantly, a welcome solution in an economic downturn. Societal ills like poverty gaps between rural and metropolitan areas might have the opportunity to close while simultaneously creating an untapped labor pool for companies. Gender gaps may shrink as organizations rethink their remote capacities for maternity leave. Gas emissions can decline, having measurable impact on environmental sustainability.

How many fathers pay no mind to their daughter's clothes? How many care not when the police drop her off after finding her somewhere? How many have no sense of the shame or potential shame brought on their homes? They do not care, but for the moment, a permanent reminder of their failure, a new baby, enters the home. Then the household swarms to protect. This is a maternal move. Often, the father is enraged, but his wife tells him they will provide for this new child. This only encourages more dishonorable behavior.Who is watching the babies of young single moms? The grandparents will care for it and raise the bastard child because it is the right thing, the honorable thing to do. A good father helps in this moment. Honor matters then, but it is a fraud. It is a crystal statue that shatters when the smallest of observers knock on it. “Where were you for the days,week,months and years leading up to that moment," we might ask. "Where was your honor then?" No one asks this because it would be rude. Such a comment implies a functioning community with corrective mechanisms, but it would be shouted down in this matriarchal culture that celebrates single mothers.

These were the moments in a mother's life about which nobody ever warned you, about which everybody kept a deceitful silence, the fine books and the speakers who had so much to say about the sacredness of maternity. They never told you that there were moments of arid clear sight when you saw helplessly that your children would never measure up to your standard, never would be really close to you, because they were not your kind of human beings, because they were not your children, but merely other human beings for whom you were responsible. How solitary it made you feel!

Pamela stood her ground rather well. She explained that Trelynt was a nursing home as well as a Maternity Home. Mr Byways screamed that it was a lunatic asylum. He would report her to the authorities; and the whole thing began all over again.

Pomona's Feast by Stewart Stafford Home from aggressive begging on November Eve, A horror movie that won't be finished in the background, The pirate's booty or robber's swag is examined. Face in the bag, a cornucopia of scents in the nostrils: Oranges, nuts, burnt popcorn, chocolate, Toffee apples, crisps, Liquorice Allsorts, and Rice Krispie cakes. A smörgåsbord Pomona's feast begins, As a maternal voice advises frugality, To no avail. Noses in the trough, Nothing eaten bears any relation to the thing eaten before or after, Aching gums, jaws, and bellies swiftly ensue. To bed to sleep it off, The next morning, it's déjà vu, The maternal voice again advises eating breakfast first, to no avail. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

One overlooked aspect of the matriarchal image is the relationship with other matriarchs or mothers who are the heads of households. Mother-to-mother dependence is another element of African American motherhood. Whereas these women work hard for the money outside of the home, they also lean on each other to share childcare responsibilities. The concept of “other mothering” is a component in the African American maternal tradition. Women taking care of each other’s children helped to establish a form of extended family. If formal childcare is not available or too costly, one mother substitutes for another. Other mothering means that the level of respect and honor a child gives to her or his biological mother is due the neighbor, cousin, aunt, or family friend taking care of the child. In the same vein, this secondary mother has the right to discipline the “son” or “daughter” as she would her own. Such reciprocity promotes a sense of communal responsibility that cross-connects mothers and children. If a child misbehaves, it is not unusual to suffer the wrath of both a community and a biological mother. Although this level of motherly accountability may not be as prevalent today, in some communities African American women still depend on each other to pick up children before and after school, carpool to a practice or game, provide a meal here and there, and just serve as an additional family member and supporter.

She had only one really cool find through her research, but it was a beauty. Lily Mullin, their father’s Irish immigrant maternal great-grandmother, had been a cook at the home of one of Philadelphia’s most prominent families. She’d disappeared from the household at the next census, but Natalie later discovered her in the home of her great-great-grandfather, John McKeller—as his wife. How, Natalie mused, did one rise from a young cook’s apprentice—sixteen years old!—to become the wife of a man who was heir to a fortune and years older? Whatever the story, she was certain it was a romantic one: Lily and John had gone on to have nine children, all of whom were alive to celebrate their parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary.

John took our Blessed Mother into his own home, loving her and being loved by her.  Mother Mary’s maternal care for John enabled him to embrace the will of God until the end of his life.  We, too, must take our Blessed Mother into the home of our hearts and embrace her as our own.  She, in turn, will embrace us and point us to her divine Son. Reflect, today, upon these beautiful words of Jesus.  Hear them spoken to you.  Hear Jesus say to you, “Behold your mother.”  Behold the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven and Earth.  Turn to her, love her and receive her motherly guidance and care.  Allow her to embrace you and to welcome you into her heart. My dearest Mother and Queen, as you stood before the Cross of your Son, the one thing that drew your eyes from your Son was the invitation from Jesus to behold your new child in grace.  I am that child, dear Mother, and I thank you for the gaze of love you bestow upon me. My dear Mother, I accept you into the home of my heart to be my spiritual mother in the order of grace.  I accept you as my queen and seek your maternal care and guidance.  Draw me to your divine Son, dear Mother, and pray for me that I may seek Him above all else in life.

In the nineteenth century, poor urban women could give birth in charity hospitals for free, though wealthier women still gave birth at home. As childbirth moved into hospitals, the maternal death rate rose dramatically. Childbed fever, as puerperal sepsis was called, was spread by doctors who did not wash their hands between exams. But doctors blamed it on tight petticoats, fretting, and bad morals.

Chapter 11: Working Together Toward Equality For a long time, the focus has been on making sure women have the choice of working outside the home or in the home. The fact that women have this right is celebrated. The question now is, are we so focused upon the issue of personal choice that we’re failing to encourage women to go for positions of senior leadership? Men and women both need to support each other. Women have not always been there supporting each other, and many times women have actually done the opposite. When Marissa Mayer was named CEO of Yahoo, she was in her third trimester of pregnancy. She announced that her maternity leave would be a few weeks long, and she would be working throughout it. Many feminists were upset with her, arguing that Marissa was “hurting the cause by setting up unreasonable expectations.” Whatever women decided for themselves as far as leave should be fully supported. Sometimes women who are already in power become obstacles to more women gaining power. This was especially true in the days of tokenism, when women would look around and see that only one woman would be allowed to climb the ladder into the senior management. Women can view other women as rivals and treat them with hostility, or undermine them, ignore them, or even sabotage them.

In the Netherlands, the government health plan provides for a specially trained nurse/lactation expert to help each new baby’s parents in their home for a full ten days following each birth (with a small co-payment). Hired for three, five, or eight hours according to individual families’ needs, this maternity nurse serves the new parents breakfast in bed, feeds any older children their breakfast, walks the dog, helps the new mother with breastfeeding if necessary, cleans the house, and notifies the midwife if the mother or baby should need medical attention for any reason. The Dutch consider the care provided each family by the maternity nurse to be an investment in good health, which benefits the entire society because it so effectively reduces the number of illnesses mothers and babies experience during the first year of the baby’s life and thus saves money

Gloria told Maria the whole story of her adoption by the time she was seven years old. She had adopted Maria after breaking up with a man---a fellow graduate student she would only ever refer to as H---who had wanted her to stand behind him at protests, and type up his dissertation, and serve him dinner and wash the dishes and bear him some children and write her own dissertation in between folding laundry. He'd seemed attracted to her in direct proportion to how well she disappeared into their backdrop. Gloria was in her midthirties then and just beginning her graduate program. She knew there were many black babies languishing in the system, unwanted. She put in a request for a healthy black infant girl. It was only a few months before she got a call from the agency saying they had one available. The baby was only a few weeks old and her name was Maria. She came from the Cane River in Louisiana. They didn't have much more information than that except that she was in the care of a Catholic orphanage now----the Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home in Maryland. Gloria dropped everything and drove eight hours to collect her child.