A collection of memoirs, diaries, essays, testimonials, and short stories by thirty women writers--including Margaret Atwood's Giving Birth, A Woman's Prerogative by Mary Gaitskill, and Jane Lazarre's The Mother Knot--explores the joy, triumph, pain, and terror of motherhood. Original. The intersection of motherhood and creative life is explored in these writings on mothering that turn the spotlight from the child to the mother herself. Here, in memoirs, testimonials, diaries, essays, and fiction, mothers describe first-hand the changes brought to their lives by pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering.Many of the writers articulate difficult and socially unsanctioned maternal anger and ambivalence. In Mother Reader, motherhood is scrutinized for all its painful and illuminating subtleties, and addressed with unconventional wisdom and candor. What emerges is a sense of a community of writers speaking to and about each other out of a common experience, and a compilation of extraordinary literature never before assembled in a single volume. Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii JOURNALS, MEMOIRS, ESSAYS Excerpt from Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 3(10) Doris Lessing Excerpt from On the Side of the Angels: The Second Volume of the Journals of Elizabeth Smart 13(6) Elizabeth Smart Excerpt from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 19(8) Sylvia Plath Excerpt from ``On Being a Grandmother'' 27(6) Margaret Mead ``Feminism and Motherhood'' 33(14) Susan Griffin ``Documentation IV: Transitional Objects, Diary and Diagram'' and ``Experimentum Mentis IV---On Femininity'' 47(14) Mary Kelly Excerpt from The Mother Knot 61(20) Jane Lazarre ``Anger and Tenderness'' 81(18) Adrienne Rich ``A Writer Because of, Not in Spite of, Her Children'' 99(4) Alice Walker ``Writer-Mothers: The Fundamental Situation'' 103(10) Tillie Olsen ``Writing and Motherhood'' 113(26) Susan Rubin Suleiman ``One Child of One's Own: A Meaningful Digression within the Work(s)'' 139(16) Alice Walker ``A Wild Surmise: Motherhood and Poetry'' 155(6) Alicia Ostriker ``The Fisherwoman's Daughter'' 161(26) Ursula K. Le Guin ``Talking About `Mothers''' 187(12) Sara Ruddick Excerpt from the M/E/A/N/I/N/G Forum: On Motherhood, Art, and Apple Pie 199(12) Susan Bee Mira Schor Myrel Chernick Dena Shottenkirk Joan Snyder Elke Solomon Martha Wilson Barbara Zucker ``Novels and Navels'' 211(14) Nancy Huston ``A Little Bit of Loss'' 225(6) Ellen McMahon ``The Case Against Babies'' 231(10) Joy Williams ``Beginning'' 241(6) Mona Simpson ``For Molly Entering College (August 1997)'' 247(2) Joan Snyder ``Notes on Early Motherhood'' 249(4) Vivian Montgomery ``A Woman's Prerogative'' 253(12) Mary Gaitskill STORIES ``I Stand Here Ironing'' 265(8) Tillie Olsen ``A Subject of Childhood'' 273(8) Grace Paley ``Good Housekeeping'' 281(4) Rosellen Brown ``Learning the Rules'' 285(16) Buchi Emecheta ``My Death'' 301(10) Lynda Schor ``Giving Birth'' 311(14) Margaret Atwood Excerpt from A Frozen Woman 325(12) Annie Ernaux Excerpt from Beloved 337(4) Toni Morrison ``The Old Dictionary'' 341(4) Lydia Davis Contributors 345(8) Permissions 353