Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves [Hardcover]

Kate Moses (Author), Camille Peri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2005

The challenges facing mothers in the twenty-first century go well beyond tantrum control and potty training. Camille Peri and Kate Moses, the founding editors of Salon.com's "Mothers Who Think" column and the subsequent anthology of the same name, have once again compiled a selection of intimate and fiercely honest essays on the profound issues that affect women and their children.

Because I Said So offers thirty-three unique perspectives on motherhood from such writers as Janet Fitch, Mariane Pearl, Ayelet Waldman, Mary Roach, Rosellen Brown, Mary Morris, and Ana Castillo. Witty and wise, their stories range from the anguish of giving up child custody to the guilt of having sex in an era of sexless marriages; from learning to love the full-speed testosterone chaos of boys to raising girls in a pervasively sexualized culture; from facing racial and religious intolerance to surviving cancer and rap simultaneously. This is the collective voice of real mothers in all their humor, anger, vulnerability, grace, and glory.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Moses and Peri, who edited Mothers Who Think, an American Book Award–winning anthology based on a Salon.com column, have gathered some 33 talented mothers (including writers Rosellen Brown, Janet Fitch, Ayelet Waldman and Ann Hulbert, among others) discussing aspects of "real motherhood" today. True, most of their issues—spousal abuse, divorce, cancer, step-parenting, single mothering—aren't new. Some contributors, like Mariane Pearl, the widow of journalist Danny Pearl, have even published their thoughts elsewhere. What's magical about this collection, though, is what happens when such diverse accounts are stitched together in a single volume: a new picture emerges of what it means to be a mother in modern America. Chemo treatments may leave you bald. Your kids may suffer from "KGOY—kids growing older younger," and as they test your limits, you may find yourself "morphing into some authoritarian freak." If you're black, people may assume you're your own child's nanny. But as one woman discovered traveling solo to Cairo to see a particular set of Roman-era memorial portraits in the Egyptian Museum, the acknowledgment "of death, of loss, of suffering, as well as of desire and remembered joy" is all "part of living." Skip the flowers and candy this Mother's Day, and buy this book instead. Agent, Ellen Levine. (May 1)

From Booklist

The writers of online magazine Salon's column "Mothers Who Think," and later a book of the same title, offer a collection of candid essays by women grappling with the demands of modern motherhood. The collection of 33 essays encompasses eight by contributors to "Mothers Who Think." Other writers include an unmarried Muslim woman banned from the mosque for having a child, a woman who disdained dolls as a girl but becomes obsessed with American Girl dolls as a weapon against precocity, a mother who laments her white middle-class son's fascination with the misogyny and ghetto worship of rap music, a mother who writes of her adolescent daughter's adjustment to her lesbian lover, and a black mother who was mistaken for the nanny of her biracial child. Essays also address divorce and separation, stepparenting, turbulent adolescence, and waning sexuality, all against the backdrop of war, environmental issues, and the financial woes of modern American life. Women will appreciate the humor and candor, and men will gain insight into the stunning challenges of motherhood. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (April 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060598786
• ISBN-13: 978-0060598785
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Phenomal Book!, April 12, 2005

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves (Hardcover)

This is one of my top Five books of 2005. In fact, this is the best book I have read this year. If I could give it a ten, I would. I identified with each of the authors in this collection of essays ~~ even though some of their experiences I may not share, they are writing from the deep reaches of their hearts and souls. This book is not only a collection of essays of women from all ages and all walks of life ~~ it is about Everywoman. It's about you and me.

When I started reading this book, I thought, oh, I'll have one favorite essay. Nope. I have more than one ~~ in fact, I love them all. These women have a wonderful and rare gift of expressing their thoughts and feelings on paper. They are inspirational for me to be the best mother, wife, friend, daughter that I can be. And if you're worried that this is all about women writing about children and parenting ~~ your fears are groundless. These women are writing about everything. They write about divorce, race, religion, abuse, love, tenderness, parenting, babysitting, watching their children grow up, dealing with prejudice,having nannies, being banned from the mosque and more.

These women write of real experiences. These women are not angry writers. They are thoughtful and reflective writers, writing with prose, humor and lyrical rhyming. These women reveal their strength and grace in their essays. They don't have any male-bashing in their essays nor are they bitter or angry. They just write and their feelings and thoughts flow together in a wonderful chime of words.

If I have any regret from reading this book, it's this one. I wish I could meet each and every single one of these essayists and sit down with them and just talk. I have learned so much from the little they've shared within this book, that I want to learn more. They are inspirational for women like me who do like to read and think. These women take in their events that changes them and in a small way, they change my perceptions and thoughts. A reader cannot walk away from this book without gleaning something from this book. It's just impossible. These writers make you stop and think about issues that you may not even be aware of. They challenge the status quo, so to speak. You cannot be comfortable with life after reading some of these essays ~~ but like I said, they're not angry writers, just perceptive and challenging writers. They force you to think, whether you like it or not.

I highly recommend this book for every woman and men too. Men can learn a lot about women and what we think just from reading this book. If you're looking for a wonderful Mother's Day gift for the thinking and reading woman in your life, this book is it. I also recommend it for high school/young women to read ~~ it gives them an idea of what women face every day as they juggle the roles of motherhood and wifehood or single parenting or just being a woman in today's world. This is a wonderful book and a best gift for everyone to add to their booklist.

4-12-05

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More to motherhood than carpools and sleepless nights, August 28, 2005

By 

Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves (Hardcover)

This book has 33 stories written by 33 intelligent women who happen to be mothers. Stories cover the gamut of breaking cultural rules, losing a successful business and starting over, dealing with divorce, moving to a foreign country and leaving your children behind, facing a difficult situation when the kids love the nanny as much as the mother, and other topics that many of us would never dream of confronting. For those who have faced such situations, these stories remind us we're not alone.

I don't know how to do these stories justice with this review. I feel like a friend sitting across from the author of the story, telling her tale as if I were her best friend because of the intimate details she shares. The stories don't have a hint of whining children, male bashing, or "woe is me" moaning. After reading a story, don't be surprised if you wish you could meet the author and become her friend.

Instead, meet a Muslim woman who deals with the stigma of having a child out of wedlock in "The Scarlet Letter Z." Meet a woman whose father killed himself when she was young and she didn't find out till eight years later - then her own husband was killed leaving her a widow at 34-years-old with a child on the way in "On Giving Hope." Meet a woman who arranged to have a dinner with her husband at a five-star restaurant and everything prior to the event goes wrong as she explains, "Why I Can Never Go Back to the French Laundry."

Mothers sometimes feel disconnected like their lives are all about their children and their activities. Reconnect by reading these essays and take strength in knowing there are smart women who happen to have the title of Mom added to their list of roles and accomplishments. They talk about motherhood beyond sleepless nights, potty training, carpooling, or food battles.

Read stories about autism, spousal abuse, growing up, babysitters, dolls, parents-to-be from different races, and a single woman having two children by artificial insemination. Expect to learn life lessons from these stories as these women have grown from experiencing life. You might walk away with something you didn't have before reading the book.

I am stunned by some of the revelations as I can't imagine admitting such things to a friend much less to a faceless public, which no doubt includes family and friends. The honesty reminds us that it's OK to feel or think this way - it doesn't make us bad, just human.

The essays vary in length so a mom can squeeze a little reading between feedings, a few minutes before going to sleep, while waiting in the carpool line, or during lunch break. Any time spent with this book is gratifying and worth every minute.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Motherhood thoughtfully written about, August 10, 2005

By 

Suzanne Amara (MA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves (Hardcover)

I read this book just after reading Mothers Who Think, an earlier book of mothering essays put together by the same people. Both books were very well done, full of essays where mothering is thought about seriously by many different mothers with many different views. However, this book focused a bit more on mothers of older children, including a lot of teenagers and preteens. There were some wonderful essays here---for me, the standout one was by the mother of a child with autism. It was one of the most realistic yet inspiring pieces of writing I've ever read about parenting such a child. The piece about the American Girl craze was also very well done. It's interesting to read how many parents re-evaluate their parenting views and perspectives when faced with children reaching older years and getting more of their own personalities! However, I found that this was not quite as strong a book as Mothers Who Think. More of the essays were less rooted in the actual act of being a mother and were more philosophical, which is fine, but not really what I was looking for--for example, the essay on traveling to Egypt to see a certain piece of art in a museum there, as a way of dealing with pregnancy loss grief. Another essay was more of a literature survey of child care literature, again, well done but not really based in day to day mothering. One of the most jarring essays for me was the one about Marta, the nanny for the author's children. It was very honestly written, but I found myself feeling so sad for the nanny, as the mother seems resentful that her daugther loves the nanny so, and that the nanny sides with the daughter in a spat between mother and daugther. If you hire someone to take care of your children, you WANT them to love your children, don't you? Overall, this book is certainly worth a read--I hope more books like this are written---books that take mothering seriously.