Between Mothers and Sons

by Stevens, Patricia

• ISBN13: 9780684850719
• ISBN10: 0684850710
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

The challenge for mothers of sons is to realize that because we do not share a sexual identity, that because we have not grown up in a male body, we cannot presume to understand everything there is to know about our sons' worlds. -- Patricia Stevens In this absolutely superb collection of mothers' personal narratives, some classic writers, as well as exciting new voices, ponder the conflicts and joys of raising sons. Patricia Stevens's Between Mothers and Sons is the first anthology in which women writers attempt to answer the question that all mothers have contemplated in the course of mothering the opposite sex: "Who is this male child who came out of my body?" After all, the mother/son relationship is the foundation of all male/female connections. Yet in our culture, it's a relationship that has been far less closely observed than the relationship between mother and daughter. From the earliest days of nursing to the good-byes as college and adulthood appear on the threshold, from adoptive families to biracial, from Native American to African-American mothers, these pages cover a broad range of experience. These writers collectively explore the delights and frustrations, the deep and often-conflicted emotions they feel in their roles as mothers to their male children. "Diamonds are forever, but love can easily get lost....I picture the broken pieces of my heart inside me like the shrapnel of a war." In Jo-Ann Mapson's heartbreaking "Navigating the Channel Islands," we read of the intense pain that appears in the wake of her adolescent son's rebellion. On a more comical note, Deborah Galyan's "Watching Star Trek with Dylan" is a must for any mother who has wondered about a young son's love of things mechanical. And Valerie Monroe's bittersweet "Feet" will touch every mother on the planet: "As I unwrapped the slippers and carefully placed them on this rug, I thought, they're his feet, after all. And step by step, they will take him away from me." Between Mothers and Sons resoundingly, if unflinchingly, celebrates this new journey that we are all making with our boys.

Author Biography

Patricia Stevens is a graduate of Bowling Green State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her essays appear in both Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul and The Healing Circle: Authors Writing of Recovery. She has received the James Michener Fellowship, the Nelson Algren Short Story Award and has been in residence both at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and at the Ragdale Foundation. Ms. Stevens is the mother of two sons.

Table of Contents

Sons as Teachers: An Introduction	9	(8)
Scars; In Four Parts	17	(7)
Sallie Tisdale
Operating Instructions	24	(10)
Anne Lamott
Soldier Son	34	(11)
Janet Burroway
Watching Star Trek with Dylan	45	(14)
Deborah Galyan
Fourteen	59	(15)
Kris Vervaecke
Evan	74	(6)
Jewell Parker Rhodes
Syllogisms	80	(19)
Eileen Pollack
Little Nomad	99	(18)
Naomi Shihab Nye
Nick's Door	117	(22)
Julene Bair
Understanding the Weave: Notes on Raising a Son	139	(13)
Joy Harjo
Belongings	152	(4)
Susan Lester
Mother and Son	156	(9)
Mary Gordon
Jonathan Bing	165	(17)
Priscilla Leigh McKinley
Navigating the Channel Islands	182	(15)
Jo-Ann Mapson
Safe as Houses	197	(14)
Robb Forman Dew
On Throwing Like a Girl	211	(7)
Patricia J. Williams
Auto Mechanics	218	(20)
Patricia Stevens
Feet	238	(13)
Valerie Monroe
Permissions	251	(2)
List of Contributors	253	(3)
Acknowledgments	256