Moms Gone Mad: Motherhood and Madness

Oppression and Resistance

Edited by Gina Wong

Impetus for this landmark collection emerged from the extraordinary success of the Moms Gone Mad: Motherhood and Madness Oppression and Resistance International Conference in New York City, 2009. Cultural meanings extolled on motherhood are often overlooked and many women struggle and personalize issues to themselves and remain silent. This anthology synthesizes and roars out marginalized experiences of moms in a culture that relegates unconventional experiences to ‘craziness’ and her own ‘madness’. From a feminist perspective, scholars in motherhood across disciplines and mothers steeped in theexperience have come together to capture multifarious experiences of oppression to resistance in a groundbreaking antholgy that embodies motherhood empowerment. This book enhances dialogue and revolutionizes our understanding of motherhoodconstructions and experiences by exploring the underbelly of mothering and subjugated experiences such as women’s inhumanity to women and deconstructing notions of ‘mommy’ in lit erature/media that are oppressive. Critical examinations of the ‘good mother’, ‘mother-shame’, and ‘mother-guilt’, growing up a daughter of depression, body image and disordered eating in motherhood, postpartum depression are explored as well as experiences such as single motherhood, mothering a child with disability, and childlessness; and perceived anomalies such as losing a child to suicide and postpartum psychosis and more.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Mothers, Madness, and the Labour of Feminist Practice: Responding to Women in the Perinatal Period–Jules Smith and Marina Morrow

Chapter 2: “The First Rule Is That a Mother Should Govern Her Own Feelings”: Modern Child-Rearing Advice and the Discipline of Maternal Emotions–Roblyn Rawlins

Chapter 3: The Persistence and Destructiveness of Mother-Blame within Psychological Theory–Regina Edmonds

Chapter 4: Fractured Motherhood: The Insanity of Reproduction in Australia in the 1930s–Alison Watts

Chapter 5: “Who Decides If Mothers Are Crazy? From Freud’s Mother to Today’s–Paula Caplan

Motherhood: Resistance and Empowerment

Chapter 6: Matroreform: Reforming Motherhood–Gina Wong

Chapter 7: Cultural Representation of Childlessness: Stories of Motherhood Resistance–Grace Bosibori Nyamongo

Chapter 8: The Space Between: Mothering in the Context of Contradiction?–Joanne Minaker                 

Chapter 9: Postpartum Depression: An Holistic and Sociocultural Perspective–Gina Wong, Karine Bordua, Caroline Sandhurst, & Kathryn Bell

Chapter 10: Postpartum Depression and Caregiving: Beyond the Developmental- Inadequacy Discourse–Nicole Letourneau and Gerald Giesbrecht

Mad Mothers: Narrative Voices

Chapter 11: Creating a Space for Mothers Whose Children Have Died by Suicide–Donna Johnson and Helen Levine                                                                        

Chapter 12: Daughters of Depression: Life Inside the Bell Jar–Nancy Gerber

Chapter 13: Postpartum Psychosis: A Mother of Madness–Gina Wong and Teresa Twomey

Chapter 14: The Killing of a Woman: An Organized Crime–Naomi Binder Wall

Chapter 15: Envious Mothers, Beautiful, High-Spirited Daughters: The First Step Towards Women’s Inhumanity to Women (revised and reprinted)–Phyllis Chesler

About the Author

Dr. Gina Wong is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology at Athabasca University, Canada. She is a Registered Psychologist who specializes and publishes/presents nationally and internationally on maternal mental health and wellness. Gina directs a counselling and consulting practice devoted to adolescent girls and women. She is a Board of Director with the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement and Demeter Press and is an Advisory Board member with the Journal of Motherhood Initiative. She is the Alberta Co-coordinator with Postpartum Support International and directs the Disordered Eating and Body Image Treatment (DEBIT) Program. Gina resides in Edmonton, Alberta with her two young daughters.