I wasn’t
born on Mother’s Day, but every six or seven years, my birthday falls
on the holiday. Growing up next door to my best friend (who
was born on May 8), we shared a very special week. Mother’s Day fell smack
among the six days between our birthdays.
This combination of holidays made
May a very special month. As teenagers,
our mothers celebrated with us and as young women we took them out to lunch or
dinner, all of us feeling in some way very unique and fortunate.
As
a teenagers, we probably took this serendipitous coupling of
days for granted. Had we known how
soon we would lose this time to honor each other, we’d probably have
treasured the celebrations even more. Both of our mothers died young
in their late forties and early fifties just as we were becoming
mothers ourselves.
Many books have been
written about mothers and daughters in literature, “Little Women” being
one of the most notable. In
classics of non-fiction, sociologists and psychologists have concentrated on
the mother-daughter bond, many of them focused on simply surviving the
relationship. In 2006, bestselling
author Iris Krasnow wrote “I Am My Mother’s Daughter: Making Peace with Mom –
Before It’s Too Late.” In 2002, clinical
psychologist Anthony E. Wolf updated his 1992 classic “Get Out of My Life, But
First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent’s Guide to the New
Teenager.”
The mother daughter bond is
complicated and sometimes confusing. In the novel “Sing You
Home," Jodi Picoult wrote, “All I know is that I carried you for nine
months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid
for your college education. Friending me
on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return.”
Last year I read what will
unquestionably be one of my favorite books:
“What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered
Most” (2013) edited by Elizabeth Benedict.
In it, Benedict compiled thirty-one stories of complex mother-daughter
love. Each essay is composed by an award-winning novelist, poet, or journalist.
Benedict herself writes fondly of a shawl that was given to her by her
mother. Author Lisa See recounts
the passion and craft of the art of writing as the gift she received
from her mother. A few more of the authors
acknowledge painful connections to their mothers. What makes
this book lovely is its magical lens that
inspects the joyful, profound and sometimes messy bond between mothers and
daughters.
“A Cup
of Comfort for Mothers and Daughters: Stories that Celebrate a Very Special
Bond” (2003), edited by Colleen Sell includes fifty individual stories by
writers who share their stories of being a daughter, a mother, or
both. Other collections are “How I
Learned to Cook: and Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships”
(2004), edited by Margo Perin, and “It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising
Daughters” (2006), edited by Andrew J. Buchanan.
Perri Klass is a Harvard-educated
pediatrician (“Quirky Kids” 2004) who is also the executive medical director of
Reach Out and Read, a non-profit that promotes childhood literacy through
clinics and doctors’ offices. She is
also a professor of both journalism and pediatrics, a knitter, a novelist, a
mother and a daughter. The 2006 book,
“Every Mother is a Daughter: The Neverending Quest for Success, Inner Peace,
and a Really Clean Kitchen” is co-written with her mother, Sheila Solomon
Klass. They share their love of reading,
motherhood and writing; they also include both recipes and knitting
instructions in the combined memoir.
While they profess the inevitable frustration and irritation of the
mother-daughter bond, they also assert the comfort, pleasure and respect.
Jaime Morrison Curtis has written
two books on motherhood: “Prudent Advice: Lessons for My Baby Daughter” (2010)
and “Prudent Advice: Lessons for My Daughter” (2012). Hundreds of mini-lessons, many of which first
appeared on her blog, include such advice that starts with “Sometimes it’s not
just about you”, “Don’t be afraid to get lost” or “Live alone for a period of
time.” Other lessons deal with learning how to jump-start a car battery or cook
squash.
Famous politico Mary Matalin (Republican
strategist married to Democrat political-advisor James Carville) has managed to
survive a complicated marriage that includes opposing political views and two
young daughters. Matalin lost her own mother at the age of 26 and in a
series of letters (“Letters to My Daughters” 2004) she urges them to think for
themselves and live a moral, ethical life. A decade later, those two daughters
are now readying for college.
Past editor-in-chief of Gourmet
magazine, Ruth Reichl has written several bestselling books about her
adventures with food (“Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table” 1998 and
“Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise” 2005). She has also written “For You Mom, Finally”
(2010), first published as “Not Becoming My Mother and Other Things She Taught
Me Along the Way” (2009). Reichl feels
that she never really knew her mother, a woman who revealed much
unhappiness as she aged. However,
in this memoir, Reichl examines the relationship and realizes, finally, how
many sacrifices her mother made so that she, the daughter, would not suffer the
same disappointments.
Memoir-writer Kelly Corrigan’s first
bestseller is “The Middle Place” (2008), the story about her father, cancer,
and love. Her second book, “Lift” (2010)
is a letter to her children written to encourage them to learn to risk and
love. She has come full circle this year
with “Glitter and Glue” (2014).
Corrigan’s mother told her that her father (whom she idealized) was the
glitter but that it was she, the mother, who was the glue. It wasn’t until she became an adult that
Corrigan realized it was her mother who also deserved her
appreciation and respect.
This mother’s day I have the honor
of celebrating not just my birthday and motherhood, but
I will share in my eldest daughter’s first mother’s day. As I watch her take the same steps
in the mother-daughter journey, I will be sure to arm her with a plethora of books
the help her along the way.
If you need help requesting any of
these books in the Minuteman Library catalog, please call or visit the Morrill
Memorial Library.
