The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't - Hardcover

Maushart, Susan

3.84

289 ratings by Goodreads

9781565844834: The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565844831 ISBN 13: 9781565844834

Publisher: New Press, The, 1999

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Erma Bombeck meets Naomi Wolf -- a funny, articulate, right-on-the-money look at being a new mother in the '90s.

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Review:

Everything changes when a woman becomes a mother, but society--particularly women themselves--often colludes to deny this simple truism. In The Mask of Motherhood, author Susan Maushart (a nationally syndicated columnist in Australia and the mother of three children) explores the effect childbearing has upon women. In the process, she removes the veils of serenity and satisfaction to reveal what she holds to be the truth: the early years of motherhood are physically difficult and can be emotionally devastating. New mothers increasingly enter full-scale identity crises, few women have sufficient information about child-rearing realities, and, as Maushart writes, "the realities of parenthood and especially motherhood are kept carefully shrouded in silence, misinformation, and outright lies." The book comprises seven essay-style chapters. In "Falling: The Experience of Pregnancy," Maushart discusses wrongful notions about morning sickness, the mixed messages about pregnancy weight gain, and the "mask" of stoicism pregnant women feel compelled to wear. In "Laboring Under Delusions," Maushart exposes the changes 30 years have brought in childbirth, and the contemporary woman's need for self-control in all things, including birth. In "Superwoman and Stuporman," Maushart disabuses readers of the myth of what she calls, "pseudo-egalitarian family life." The Mask of Motherhood is extensively researched, convincing, and deeply insightful. --Ericka Lutz

From Publishers Weekly:

Adopting the posture of a prophetic truth teller, Maushart (Sort of a Place Like Home) makes some valuable points about contemporary attitudes toward motherhood. She attacks the myth that women can have it all, warning mothers that they will find themselves instead "doing it all." Furthermore, she argues, if women dared to speak the truth, they would open themselves to ridicule from those who view "achievement, control, and autonomy as the highest of adult aspirations." Motherhood, she stresses, is not and has never been simply one of many ingredients in the "Easymix" lifestyle. She's less convincing?and sometimes infuriating?when discussing childbirth: arguing that women's need for control dictates their childbirth decisions (a natural childbirth for some, a medically managed one for others), Maushart leaves no room for the possibility that a mother's choice might be driven by her desire to do what's best for the baby. Similarly, her insistence that breast-feeding women can't work outside the home because of a lactation-induced "hormonal fog" ignores or belittles the successful experiences of countless nursing, working mothers. In short, while Maushart provides a bracing reality check for women contemplating motherhood, she's not breaking any new ground. Any woman who has read Vicky Iovine's The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy or The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood can consider herself a recipient of the truth that Maushart claims is so hard to find.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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