In this ground-breaking anthology, Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender ask real moms -- from Web site designers to tattoo-clad waitresses -- to laugh, cry, scream, and shout about motherhood. Allison Crews fights to have a voice and be recognized as a teen mother. Angela Morrill eschews both doctors and midwife and gives birth at home. Kimberly Bright draws compelling comparisons between "raising a toddler and having a psychotic boyfriend." For every young mom, Breeder offers inspiration, strength, wisdom, and humor. Contributors include Allison Crews, Beth Lucht, Ayun Halliday, Peri Escarda, Allison Abner, and Kimberly Bright.
The voices of mothers--the real in-the-trenches voices of mothers--always threaten the status quo. Tell the truth about your ambivalence, rage, and passion--whether about miscarriage, breast pumps, or (as profiled here) your welfare-avoidance job as a stripper--and watch the general public recoil. But as every mother knows, there is nothing more comforting than finding another woman who is willing to sit in your kitchen and share the honest-to-God truth about mothering. So it takes a lot of best-girlfriend loyalty to write the gut-wrenching motherhood stories that you'll find in Breeder. And fortunately, coeditors Bee Lavender and Ariel Gore (The Hip Mama Survival Guide, The Mother Trip) had enough grit and pluck to get them published. (Both women are also the editors of the online and print magazine Hip Mama.)
This collection of Gen-X essays is especially courageous because of all the taboos it shatters. Writer Julie Jameson confesses that she was talking on the phone with her mom when she looked up and discovered that her teething son had found her newly purchased vibrator and was gnawing on the tip. Gayle Brandeis boasts about the heroic treks she's taken through the hidden folds of her children's bottoms, searching for pinworms like a cave explorer. Sara Manns writes about the desire to have a child with her lesbian wife, which leads her through the terrain of sperm donors, then miscarriage, and finally international adoption. And we can all be grateful to Peri Escarda for helping us find the "Perfect Name" to offer a daughter when she points between her legs and asks, "What's dat?"
Not all the stories are masterfully rendered. Some rely on raw urgency, such as Alex McCall's "Bomb Threat," in which she anxiously retrieves her daughter from a federal-building childcare facility on the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing. Yet many offer mature crafting as well as tender narration. When Min Jin Lee became pregnant, she thought about her own Korean immigrant upbringing and her downtrodden mother's enormous sacrifices. She writes, "These were my fears: One day my child would feel the need to make my life whole through her accomplishments, or worse, as an adult, she would be unable to ever remember me smiling at her as a little girl." Jessica Rigney writes a chillingly exquisite story about altering her family's legacy of suicide and silence through the conscious mothering of her son. These are the rough-and-ready voices of the next wave of motherhood, and like the generation of feminists before them, they continue to break new, fertile ground. One can hardly wait to hear the voices of their daughters. --Gail Hudson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Geez, Can breeders just go away....:
As a professional women, I think women should do whatever makes them happy as long as they can afford to financially support their choice.
But please, This is not God's work, this is Fu**ing and getting knocked up.
I personally feel the smarter you are, the less kids you will chose to have. I have never desired children and cannot stand to be in the presence of other women that do. Strangely enough, women today seem to be the worst mothers ever. The kids today are so ill bred, no wonder there... more info
Read this:
I can't get over the guilt or whining of some of the soccer moms. The majority of the parenting books cater to YOU! This book was a refreshing anthology of different mamas, different breeders. I usually buy this book and _Mothers Who Think_ for my pregnant friends under about 35. I think this book speaks to various people and not just the mini-van crowd, who have shelves of books to choose from in any bookstore!
I guess being unprepared for having kids makes you hip.:
I can't say that some of the essays weren't well-written, because they were. My problem was the content. I'm not Mrs. Brady by a long shot, I thought I was forward-thinking, a feminist, a hip-mama, but apparently, if you want to stick to the confines of this collection, if you aren't on welfare, a single-mom, or a teenager, in an alternative relationship or all of the above, you aren't from the "New Generation of Mothers". Personally, that's okay with me. I'll just go on being a good mother with a secret... more info
Pardon the cliche, but big waste of trees:
I would give this zero stars given the chance. First, the title is very misleading. These are not essays by "the new generation of mothers," but rather teen, welfare and wanna-be hippie moms. These flighty, immature, irresponsible writers do NOT represent my generation. (I am 30.) Just take a glimpse at the biographies in the back before you decide to read this drivel. One author is described as a "second generation welfare mama." Now there's a source of pride. These essays include the story of a teenage... more info
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