Priscilla’s presence quickly does as much to shake up Rebecca’s perception of the world as it does to stabilize her life. Like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed. She reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help-Priscilla Johnson-and begs her to come home with them as her son’s nanny. This story, which includes the author’s account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, offers a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making. At its center is a romance: the story of the author’s relationship with artist Harry Dodge. In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces off against stereotypes of single, Black motherhood, and confronts the reality of raising children of color in racially charged, modern-day America.Ī genre-bending memoir, a work of “autotheory” offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. Motherhood So White is the story of Nefertiti’s fight to create the family she always knew she was meant to have and the story of motherhood that all American families need now. She realized that American society saw motherhood through a white lens, and that there would be no easy understanding or acceptance of the kind of family she hoped to build. Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America by Nefertiti AustinĮager to finally join the motherhood ranks, Nefertiti was shocked when people started asking her why she wanted to adopt a “crack baby” or said that she would never be able to raise a Black son on her own. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance. The experience is her own―as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother―but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed on all women everywhere. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne RichĪdrienne Rich’s influential and landmark investigation concerns both the experience and the institution of motherhood. They ask us to imagine new narratives instead, and they demand that we reconsider motherhood in ways that are truly intersectional, inclusive, and honest. These books inspire us to reconsider the white, heteronormative, often false narratives of motherhood that serve to bolster the white supremacist patriarchy. So this year, to celebrate Mother’s Day here at The Rumpus, we’ve asked our editors to share a list of books by writers who challenge our traditional views of mothers, motherhood, and mothering. Mother’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, and often the celebrations it inspires reinforce our static and outdated ideas of what it means to be a mother and to have a mother rather than pushing against those antiquated stereotypes.
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