Ourselves As Mothers: The Universal Experience Of Motherhood

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Da Capo Press, 1995 - Mother and child - 270 pages
Sheila Kitzinger writes with understanding of the problems facing mothers in the West today, about the pain of infertility, the struggles of working mothers, the myth of the "new man", the underrating of housework, and the ways in which women try to juggle their identities as both mothers and achievers in today's world. Citing examples from India to Jamaica, South Africa to Communist China, she reveals what motherhood means in our own and different cultures. From preparing for pregnancy to the ritualization of hospital birth, from the bonds forged between mother and child to the changes in behavior expected of women when they become mothers, Kitzinger's unique anthropological exploration enables us to reflect upon and reexamine our own rituals. Ourselves as Mothers is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging study of its kind, and an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of women and society. It is a celebration of the diversity, the ingenuity, the energy, and the courage of the great sisterhood of mothers.

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Contents

Mothers Cut to Shape
17
The Empty Womb
33
Experimenting with Motherhood
63
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

Sheila Kitzinger was born Sheila Helena Elizabeth Webster in Taunton, Somerset, England on March 29, 1929. She studied social anthropology at Ruskin and St Hugh's Colleges at Oxford. As an anthropologist, she encouraged women around the world to reclaim from doctors their natural prerogative over pregnancy and childbirth. Her first book, The Experience of Childbirth, was published in 1962. Her other works included Birth over Thirty, Woman's Experience of Sex, Breastfeeding Your Baby, Ourselves as Mothers, Becoming a Grandmother, Birth Crisis, Birth and Sex: The Power and the Passion, and A Passion for Birth. She created a Birth Crisis Network in Britain, which offers reflective listening for women traumatized after delivery. She died after a short illness on April 11, 2015 at the age of 86.

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