Milk of Female Kindness (James)

The Milk of Female Kindness:  An Anthology of Honest Motherhood
Kasia James et al, 2014
223 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780992389116


Summary
"Mother" is a word heavy with associations.

Becoming a mother is surely one of the biggest changes and challenges in a woman's life. It is at once an absolutely unique experience, and yet one which is so common that it is often overlooked. Motherhood is intense, relentless and absorbing, in all senses of the word.

Popular culture seems to have a split personality when it comes to motherhood - at once holding it up as a sacred ideal, and yet being a little dismissive of women as mothers.

A diverse international group of women have been brave enough to share their stories, poetry and artwork to encourage you to think and feel about this most influential of relationships in a new and enlightened way. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
This international collection of creative works, covers diverse topics including loss and changes to identity, mental health, disability, managing the work/life balance, birthing practices, adoption, schools of thought on parenting, and aging. There are valuable historical, feminist and medical perspectives.

The anthology features the work of award winning poets and writers from Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—including Angelique Jamail, Marie Marshall, Christa Forster and Sandra Danby, and renowned professionals including Dr. Carla Pascoe, Professor Alison Bartlett, and Heather Sadiechild Harris.

Discussion Questions
1. Birth
Pregnancy and the birth of a baby change a woman’s world fundamentally. There is no going back. The experience itself is an integral part of the becoming a parent.

1a. Was your birth experience what you expected? Explain.

1b. What did your experience with pregnancy and birth tell you about the mother you are becoming?

1c. How has your infant surprised you? What personality traits is she or he already manifesting?

2. Life lessons on being a mother
Once you find your bearing, motherhood evolves into not only a physical redesign of your world, but a mental and psychological one, with assumptions, world views and expectations about life being continuously reshaped.

2a. How has having a child changed your life? Discuss it through all lenses—gain and loss.

2b. What family rituals have you established as part of the parenting role? Do rules and rituals matter and why?

2c. How does parenting differ between mother and father, and what impact does that have on family dynamics?

2d. How do you balance work, motherhood and other family/community obligations? What toll does that balance take on you?

3. Identity Challenges
Having children can fundamentally alter how we see ourselves and our place in the world and how others see us. It can layer on duties and responsibilities that have to be balanced with our own, often volatile egos and sense of self.

3a. How do you feel your identity has changed since having children?

3b. How has that identify altered as your children have grown?

3c. What do we owe to our children? Is there a limit?

4. External Pressures on Mothers
Women face a lot of external pressures—from books, media, family and friends, community groups, politicians—that is always telling them how to be a mother, and by definition how not be one. Those pressures often dig deep, undermining our confidence, and overwhelming us with conflicting information.

4a. How do you think society sees motherhood?

4b. To what degree do you agree with that perception?

4c. How have these external perceptions affected your own experience?

4d. How do you feel society has put limits on your parenting and how have you dealt (or not dealt with it).

4e. How do you keep negative pressures at bay?

4f. Which influences have been positive and useful?

5. Adapting and Accepting Change
Often, our child(ren) surprise us, challenge us, and defy the expectations we constructed when we contemplated childbirth. Sometimes, our experience with parenting looks nothing like we had been taught to expect.

5a. What do you find most difficult about being a mother, and how do you handle it?

5b. Is "normal" a realistic or even desirable goal for our children?

5c. How do the expectations and dreams for the children/family we expected to have impact the reality of our mothering? Discuss your experience juggling expectations and your child’s reality.

5d. What do you dream for your child(ren)? How much of those dreams stem from your own dreams for the world?

5e. Are your hopes for your children shaped by your own successes and failures in life?

5f. How has parenting changed you? In what ways has it not changed you enough?

6. Through the Generations
The experience of becoming a mother not only changes our relationship with our own parents but it has us seeing our own mothers through very different eyes.

6a. What did you learn about being a mother from your own mother? How did that learning occur?

6b. What has changed in the way you view and understand your own parents?

7. Pain
Not all families start in a traditional or even joyful way. But even with difficult beginnings, rich, loving families can still blossom.

7a. Has there been anything particularly difficult in your parenting experience? How did you cope? Was there sufficient support or did you have concoct your own?

7b. If you have a non-traditional family, how has that impacted your parenting style and your ability to be the parent you think you should be?

7c. How have the challenges changed as your children grow?

(Questions courtesy of Kasia James, ed./author.)

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