Most Rewarding and Difficult Job of Motherhood in Lionel Shriver's Novel, We Need to Talk to Kevin

That job has very little honor in this community. “Three years, Three births and that’s all. After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old… The Birthmothers never even get to see new children” (p. 22). Today, some women decide to become surrogate mothers of other women’s babies because of several reasons, such as sympathy for the couples who cannot have children of their own or financial reason. However, to carry other women’s children gives surrogate moms great senses of responsibility. They writhe in not only soreness of body, but also agony of mentality. The psychological pain by giving their babies to other women is greater than that of body. Thus, some surrogate mothers refuse to give up their babies sometimes.

The movie Parenthood cover’s many of the topics we have discussed this semester in class. But it obviously focused very strongly on parenting and marriage. During the course of the movie we see the four Buckman children’s very different style of parenting. Although all four were raised by the same parents the culture of their individual families are all look very different. Gil Buckman felt abandoned and ignored by his father and therefore responded, with his wife Karen, by being a very active and attentive parent. Gil and Karen are on the authoritative end of the parenting spectrum, and their families’ culture revolves around activities such as baseball games, Kevin’s baseball game, Birthday parties, school plays and basically having fun together (Lecture, 4/22). On the opposite end of the parenting spectrum are Nathan and Susan. They are very authoritarian and reminded me of the “tiger Mom’s” of China. The culture of their family means that they don’t have their daughter in preschool, they are waiting a prescribed amount of time to have a second child and Nathan is continuously drilling facts into their daughter. Susan feels like she should be playing with children her own age but Nathan’s feelings have taken over their family’s culture.

One thing that almost everybody will have to deal with at least once in their lifetime is parenting. In parenting, both parents are needed to make the job easier on themselves, their marriage and their child. In the essay The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was. by Hope Edelman, Edelman tells her experience with co-parenting. Edelman, along with many women, initially believed that co-parenting was possible. She soon figured out, however, that it was not a realistic goal. Some points that Edelman hits in the essay are the gender roles and societal expectations in parenting, being the nurturer versus being the provider, and how poor communication can ruin

Spending a few days with the newborn, doesn’t give adequate time for the mother to structure any type of connection with the child. The first months of the baby’s life are essential for its progress. In the later years when it’s time for the mother to come home, she and the child are strangers. Not having developed that bond at an early age causes the child to be unfamiliar with its own mother, which leads to long term sentimental and conduct issues.

However, one of the most interesting concepts is how these mothers contribute to the ways in which their daughters develop their own identities and individual practices that enable them to mother themselves. More specifically, how they learn to doctor wounds, process emotions and thought, and care for themselves in all aspects of life. Therefore,

The line between being an acceptable and unacceptable parent is often blurry and is seen on different perspectives when it comes to class, culture, and generation differences. Based on the two stories of Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds” and Tillie Olsen’s, “I Stand here Ironing” we see these two perspectives that derive from different maternal upbringings of the children in the stories. What is found between them is the conflict of being too little or heavily involved in a child’s life has had more negative outcomes during their childhood than positive.

Scheper-Hughes provides a controversial breakdown of the mothers' evident lack of concern to the death of their babies as not a repression of grief, but as a plan for endurance. The mothers, by allowing themselves to form attachment to only the babies who have already verified their capability to survive by doing so during early infancy, these women can increase the existence odds of their strongest children. Modern ideas about "mother love," and about mother-infant bonding as a naturally occurring process that in general occurs in the first few moments of a baby's life, are the cultural result of the statistical differences which allows women to give birth to just a few children, each of which she may be expecting to raise to adulthood.

To some people a baby can be the best thing that ever happened to them, but then there are others who have decisions to make. They will go through an important stage in any relationship, the make it or break it stage. The two stories that I will be analyzing will be “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin and “Hills like White Elephants” by Earnest Hemingway. In both stories the characters found out how babies can be a deciding factor in a relationship, and that’s what I will be focusing on.

Some teens who get pregnant at an early age like to depend on their parents way too much. In the show, there was a girl who actually had her mom watch her son every day and all day just so she could still go out and be able to party and come home late. Obviously that mom didn’t help because the teen’s mother eventually took full custody of her grandson because he wasn’t being well taken care of by his biological mother. For the parents to teach them a lesson, the parents have to let their teen kids see that raising a baby whether it is alone or not is not easy. As stated in a paragraph above, not only is it physically taking care of a baby but also financial wise. Some mother’s like to be hard on their teen’s and show them that they are not always going to be around and know it is time to grow up and a raise a baby on their

The next main factor in the story is society's attitude towards illegitimacy. Any woman who bore a child out of wedlock was treated with disgust and held an air of shame and disgrace. This caused those who did happen to have their children out of wedlock to give them up and send them off to orphanages in hope their child would be alright. A lot of these single mothers tried to send their children to one such orphanage called "The Coram Hospital". An example is when Melissa, a young girl just found out she was pregnant and says "'And Mama? What about Mama? The disgrace. We'll both be thrown out. Destitute." This is a good example of the consequences of illegitimacy. If anybody found out about such circumstances the mother and her acquaintances would be thrown out and homeless. The writer includes this factual information in the story and it entwines

The essence of the relationship between a mother and child is a mutual ascendency in regards to identity. Children are subject to an instinctive longing for a mother. It is the mother’s influence that guides them in their process of discovering all the realities the world posses and in that processing discerning their identity. Conversely when a woman becomes a mother the presence of her child causes her to evaluate and develop her identity under the pretense of motherhood. Paula Nicolson touches on the value of both these scenarios in her article “Motherhood and Women’s Lives” where she expresses how the mother child relationship gives the pretense for both parties to find their authentic identities (Nicolson). Sue Monk Kidd evaluates the

A constructive critique of the research into women’s experiences of becoming a mother after prolonged labour.

To begin with, Ms. Gui got a rare opportunity to speak in front of the class of ‘83 at Mills college. She was lucky because most of the time, men get to do such things like graduate of publicly speak. Although she thought her speech wouldn’t sound right if she talked about women, she talked about them anyways. Ms. Gui continued to talk about how she hopes that all of the women in the crowd who want babies will have them. She wants their children to be lovely and blessed.

Maya Angelou said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” (Wanderlust 1). The relationship a mother has with her child transcends all other relationships in complexity. Maternity largely contributes to the female identity in part because the ability to sexually reproduce is uniquely female. With this ability often comes an unparalleled feeling of responsibility. That is, mothers experience an inherent desire to protect their children from the world and guide them through life. Serving as a child’s protector then transforms a woman’s perspective, or the female gaze. While these protective instincts often arise naturally, they are also reinforced by the ideas society’s perpetuates about motherhood. Globally, women are expected to assume the roles of wives and mothers. The belief that motherhood is somewhat of a requirement assists in the subjugation of women and reinforces a plethora of gendered stereotypes. While some women enjoy the process of childrearing, others feel that having a family comes at an irreparable cost: losing sight of oneself. In response to the polarized views surrounding maternity, several authors have employed different writing techniques to illustrate the mother-child dynamic. Through the examination of three narratives, spanning fiction and non-fiction, one is able to better define maternity and the corresponding female gaze in both symbolic and universal terms.

Becoming a father is a life changing experience. Most fathers will remember that one special day for the rest of their lives, while other fathers say the day their child was born was the day their life as they knew it was over. After sitting down and interviewing three different fathers who had three very different experiences before and after child birth my eyes have been opened to the multiple views, experiences, memories, and feelings these three gentlemen have experienced or will soon experience. Mr. Snyder who is currently awaiting the birth of his first child in the spring of 2015 was the first man I interviewed. Mr. Celso is the second man I interviewed. Mr. Celso and his wife experienced a very emotional and nerve wrecking pregnancy and birth of their two 4 month old twins. Lastly, Mr. Shipley was the last man I interviewed. Mr. Shipley is a father of a one year old boy. Mr. Shipley’s experience of the birth of his child was much different then the other two gentlemen given that Mr. Shipley and the mother of his son are not in any type of relationship, nor were they during their child’s birth. Each of these men shared a lot of similarities as well as an abundance of differences regarding their children and soon to be children.