Mothers & Others: Australian writers on why not all women are mothers and not all mothers are the same
‘When are you having children?’ ‘Why didn’t you have another child?’ ‘Well, I guess that’s your choice, but…’
They are questions asked of women of a certain age all the time. Beneath them is the assumption that all women want to have children, and the judgment that if they don’t, they’ll be somehow incomplete. And that’s only the beginning…
In this collection of fiction and non-fiction stories edited by Miriam Sved, Maggie Scott, Christie Nieman, Maya Linden and Natalie Kon-yu, Australian women reflect on motherhood: how it should be and how it really is. With unflinching honesty and clear-eyed wisdom, Mothers & Others holds a mirror up to the most romanticised, demonised and complex roles women play: those of mother or non-mother, and daughter.
PRAISE FOR MOTHERS & OTHERS
‘Several thoughtful pieces explore the difficulties women can experience in reconciling feminism with mothering. The main character in Miriam Sved’s excellent short story, ‘Main Street’, notes that knowing how to look after a baby is “not some beautiful eternal thing tied up with being a woman”, and that negotiating the housework and childcare is simply industrial relations.’
Eleanor Elliott Thomas, The Sydney Morning Herald
© Miriam Sved