Christina Baker Kline
© Copyright 2007 Christina Baker Kline. All Rights Reserved.
CHILD OF MINE shifts the focus from the newborn to the mother with essays that address questions beyond
the cradle to the person rocking it. Mothers express fears of becoming neglectful or smothering, careless or
neurotic, obsessive or regretful. As Christina Baker Kline herself confesses in the book’s introduction, “No
one could have told me, when I found out I was pregnant for the first time, how overwhelming, exhilarating,
and lonely becoming a mother would be.” And her attempt to alleviate that feeling of loneliness was to
establish the community of mothers’ voices in this collection.
The experiences the new mothers share are as compelling as they are diverse – with contributors ranging
from a poverty-stricken mother in rural Vermont, to an accomplished career woman in New York, from a
single African-American journalist in Los Angeles to a stay-at-home mother in San Diego. Yet throughout the
collection there is an overwhelming sense of the beauty of change – the idea that a mother is something you
truly become.
Excerpts:
“I take my baby on the subway in New York City. I snap her into her spit-up soiled carrier, sockless, and set
off, licking my finger to wipe the banana off her chin. I let her touch the greasy metal pole. I pick up the
toys she tosses onto the subway floor and offer them up to her, a gift wrapped in grime.”
“When friends dropped by unannounced with their toddler, it was all I could do to be civil. Their child, earlier
a sweet baby, was a huge unwieldy creature teeming with germs from daycare. What were they doing
bringing him into the same room with my pure, untainted, vulnerable newborn?”
“Indeed, Jake and I have nursing down to an art form. He can, and does, nurse in almost any position
imaginable – standing up, sitting down, lying prone, feet flung to one side, under the computer table as I
pound out an assignment on deadline. In trains, planes and automobiles, he has latched on.”
“Before I stopped breast-feeding – after the nine weeks – I would get mastitis three times. I would swallow
a small landfill of antibiotics that couldn’t possibly be good for my kid, and spend endless hours massaging,
soaking, pumping, and applying ice packs and heating pads to my throbbing breasts. I would bare my chest
to the midwife and the gynecologist, the pediatrician and the breast surgeon who finally convinced me that,
being literally not built for this, I should quit.”
“When I think back to those days, what I recall most vividly is the enormous amount of rage and frustration
I fought to suppress. While trying to maneuver around the guilt and resentment to access the love I knew I
had for my daughter, my own potential for abuse was exposed, and to my surprise, I had been engaging in
a constant and precarious flirtation with it.”
“What no one ever told me and what I have never told anyone is that something drastic occurs with
childbirth, and even though a woman may look the same soon afterward, sound the same, laugh at the same
jokes, she is not the same. The change is ineffable. It has to do with the power of magnetic attraction. It
has to do with the demonstrations of inhuman strength that you read about in the National Enquirer, a
woman lifting a car that has rolled on top of her child.”
Rather, it presents tales of survival – experiential, real, straightforward, personal accounts from one mother
to another.
the cradle to the person rocking it. Mothers express fears of becoming neglectful or smothering, careless or
neurotic, obsessive or regretful. As Christina Baker Kline herself confesses in the book’s introduction, “No
one could have told me, when I found out I was pregnant for the first time, how overwhelming, exhilarating,
and lonely becoming a mother would be.” And her attempt to alleviate that feeling of loneliness was to
establish the community of mothers’ voices in this collection.
The experiences the new mothers share are as compelling as they are diverse – with contributors ranging
from a poverty-stricken mother in rural Vermont, to an accomplished career woman in New York, from a
single African-American journalist in Los Angeles to a stay-at-home mother in San Diego. Yet throughout the
collection there is an overwhelming sense of the beauty of change – the idea that a mother is something you
truly become.
Excerpts:
“I take my baby on the subway in New York City. I snap her into her spit-up soiled carrier, sockless, and set
off, licking my finger to wipe the banana off her chin. I let her touch the greasy metal pole. I pick up the
toys she tosses onto the subway floor and offer them up to her, a gift wrapped in grime.”
- “Confessions of a Lazy Mom,” Katie Greenebaum
“When friends dropped by unannounced with their toddler, it was all I could do to be civil. Their child, earlier
a sweet baby, was a huge unwieldy creature teeming with germs from daycare. What were they doing
bringing him into the same room with my pure, untainted, vulnerable newborn?”
- “A Dangerous Thing to Hope For,” Gail Greiner
“Indeed, Jake and I have nursing down to an art form. He can, and does, nurse in almost any position
imaginable – standing up, sitting down, lying prone, feet flung to one side, under the computer table as I
pound out an assignment on deadline. In trains, planes and automobiles, he has latched on.”
- “The Last Nursing Mommy Tells All,” Teri Robinson
“Before I stopped breast-feeding – after the nine weeks – I would get mastitis three times. I would swallow
a small landfill of antibiotics that couldn’t possibly be good for my kid, and spend endless hours massaging,
soaking, pumping, and applying ice packs and heating pads to my throbbing breasts. I would bare my chest
to the midwife and the gynecologist, the pediatrician and the breast surgeon who finally convinced me that,
being literally not built for this, I should quit.”
- "Breastfeeding: The Agony and the Ecstasy,” Cathi Hanauer
“When I think back to those days, what I recall most vividly is the enormous amount of rage and frustration
I fought to suppress. While trying to maneuver around the guilt and resentment to access the love I knew I
had for my daughter, my own potential for abuse was exposed, and to my surprise, I had been engaging in
a constant and precarious flirtation with it.”
- “Negotiating Violence,” Meri Nana-Ama Danquah
“What no one ever told me and what I have never told anyone is that something drastic occurs with
childbirth, and even though a woman may look the same soon afterward, sound the same, laugh at the same
jokes, she is not the same. The change is ineffable. It has to do with the power of magnetic attraction. It
has to do with the demonstrations of inhuman strength that you read about in the National Enquirer, a
woman lifting a car that has rolled on top of her child.”
- “Metamorphosis,” Constance Schraft
Rather, it presents tales of survival – experiential, real, straightforward, personal accounts from one mother
to another.
Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother, edited by
Christina Baker Kline (Hyperion)
Take away the pink glow of diaper commercials and what is motherhood
about, anyway? In this collection of original essays, thirty five writers talk
about their expectations and experiences of new motherhood. The writers
range widely in age, race, and cultural background, and so does the tone of
their essays -- from heart-wrenching to thoughtful to laugh-out-loud
hysterically funny. What they have in common is their strength of voice.
From mothers-in-law to obstetricians, advice for new mothers is not hard to
come by. But fellow voices – new mothers who talk frankly about doubting
their own sanity, obsessing over their newborns’ health, wondering if they’
ve made a mistake – are moving and rare.
CHILD OF MINE is a collection of candid, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes
devastating, narratives in which mothers from all walks of life tell about how
they struggled, survived, and thrived during their first year of motherhood.
Each of the contributors to this book – such as Susan Cheever, Mona
Simpson, and Naomi Wolf – has a distinct voice and a unique point of view.
These essays cover everything from adoption to colic, but even in cases
where the topics overlap, the mothers’ perspectives are as distinct and
memorable as each baby’s first smile.
Christina Baker Kline (Hyperion)
Take away the pink glow of diaper commercials and what is motherhood
about, anyway? In this collection of original essays, thirty five writers talk
about their expectations and experiences of new motherhood. The writers
range widely in age, race, and cultural background, and so does the tone of
their essays -- from heart-wrenching to thoughtful to laugh-out-loud
hysterically funny. What they have in common is their strength of voice.
From mothers-in-law to obstetricians, advice for new mothers is not hard to
come by. But fellow voices – new mothers who talk frankly about doubting
their own sanity, obsessing over their newborns’ health, wondering if they’
ve made a mistake – are moving and rare.
CHILD OF MINE is a collection of candid, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes
devastating, narratives in which mothers from all walks of life tell about how
they struggled, survived, and thrived during their first year of motherhood.
Each of the contributors to this book – such as Susan Cheever, Mona
Simpson, and Naomi Wolf – has a distinct voice and a unique point of view.
These essays cover everything from adoption to colic, but even in cases
where the topics overlap, the mothers’ perspectives are as distinct and
memorable as each baby’s first smile.
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
|
| Child of Mine |
|
