Is Motherhood a Woman’s Ultimate Source of Happiness?
“Bones You Break Yourself” by Fancetta Camerino and “Maybe” by Jesse Armstrong, snapshots a portion of the lives of two different women from two different backgrounds. Mags in “Bones You Break Yourself” and Tasha in “Maybe” suffer from similar transgressions yet, are in two uniquely different situations. Mags and Tasha prevent themselves from experiencing true happiness and motherhood because they both make poor decisions, are violent, suffer addictions and are incapable of nurturing a child.
Mags and Tasha make poor decisions in situations that need both tact and long-term consideration. Tasha, out of pettiness, rearranges her parent’s silverware and takes the spoons (Armstrong 62).
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Mags is an alcoholic. She waits until her partner leaves for work to decide to drink alcohol in her coffee (Camerino 9). In that moment, the alcohol comforts her against her feelings of neglect. The fact that she waits until her partner leaves shows that she does not want her partner to know that she is drinking. She admits that after a week of smoking she is unable to quit (Camerino 8). She knows she’s addicted and she waits until she is alone to both smoke and drink. She uses her addiction as a coping method to self-soothe her emotional and self-inflicted wounds. It is both her stress release and her method of destruction. She’s polluting her body which is counter intuitive to providing a place to grow and nurture a child within the womb. Tasha, on the other hand, she’s addicted to prescription pills. When she’s upset with her roommate for deciding to move out, her only comfort and focus at that moment is securing her next fix for Vicodin (Armstrong 61). She makes references to needing them to function many times throughout the story. She wants to take a Vicodin to calm down before calling her mom (Armstrong 61). It reduces her stress and allows her to react more calmly and happily. She feels the high when she goes to her mother’s house to take her daughter away (Armstrong 62). She’s feeling good and has a positive outlook despite her few petty actions geared to make her parents angry. She’s indeed dependent on the Vicodin to …show more content…
Mags is incapable of nurturing a child at this moment because she lost a child physically. She makes a reference to her empty womb and her body feeling like a morgue (Camerino 9). She feels a lot of guilt and responsibility for it because she feels that she could have done more or she has done something wrong (Camerino 10). She is suffering from severe regret and depression. Her addictions and masochistic tendencies are ensuring an unhealthy environment that would not be wise for her to seek conception. Tasha is incapable of nurturing a child because she lives a rocky lifestyle. She’s incapable of taking her child into proper consideration (Armstrong 63-64). She envisions a life with her child but is not only incompetent, irrational and self-defeating but, she is incapable of putting her child first. She leaves her child at the diner’s table while she sits in the bathroom craving Vicodin while debating the idea of letting her parents raising her daughter or abandoning her child altogether (Armstrong 65). They both do not know nurture themselves both in mind or body, let alone a
...er appreciate the world in this way because her mental and physical state was always impaired. When she wasn’t she could not make these same associations because bonding with alcohol repetitively was the only constant joy she had in her life.
Are all mothers fit for motherhood? The concept of motherhood is scrutinized in the stories “The Rocking Horse Winner” and “Tears Idle Tears”. In “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence the mother, Hester, unpremeditatedly provokes her son into providing for her through gambling. In the story “Tears Idle Tears” by Elizabeth Bowen, Mrs. Dickinson disregards her son’s emotions and puts more emphasis in her appearance than her son’s wellbeing. Hester and Mrs. Dickinson both were inadequate mothers. Both the mothers were materialistic, pretended to love their offspring, and their dominance hindered their children’s progress in life.
The relationship between Brenda and alcohol is quickly grasped, as she is experiencing a hangover at the beginning of the story. When Brenda tells her mother, “I have a headache and I think I’m getting car sick,” she tries to blame the car ride for her nausea, even though she knows the truth behind her physical condition (Vande Velde 5). Because even though Brenda shares her alcoholic tendencies as the narrator, she hides them from those within her family. Brenda’s affiliation with alcohol is further unraveled as she reveals, “sometimes my parents let me have half a glass of wine with dinner” (Vande Velde 31). This type of behavior from her parents helps Brenda to condone and minimize the problem of her underage drinking. This is irresponsible of Brenda’s parents and affects her outlook on the seriousness of alcohol use. Once home alone Brenda takes a bath with her “wine on the edge of the tub” and states that she feels, “savvy and downright sophisticated” (Vande Velde 32). This feeling of sophistication that Brenda derives from the wine only stimulates her urge to drink even more. The full extent of Brenda’s problem is clearly perceived when her mother discovers her fake ID. Disappointed in her daughter, Brenda’s mom starts, “crying, soundlessly, tears pouring down her cheeks” (Vande Velde 58). This discovery of her fake ID is another obstacle propelling Brenda and her mother apart as Brenda dissatisfies her parents yet
The meaning of life and the true meaning of happiness can be pin-pointed simply by: Grow up. Get married. Have children. These three ending sentences form the basis of the main argument in “About Love”, an excerpt from “What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman” by Danielle Crittenden. Crittenden does not limit the use of her emotional appeal to repeated use of terms like “love”, “friendship” and “independence”. One of the strongest qualities supporting the thesis of “About Love” is Crittenden’s ability to use both connotative and denotative language. Crittenden goes on to say “Too often, autonomy is merely the excuse of someone who is so fearful, so weak, that he or she can’t bear to take
Satel tells us, “While theoretically anyone can become an addict, it is more likely the fate of some” (1). Amongst those in that category are women who were
With the advent of neoliberalism, the practice of mothering in Western society arguably shifted from a manner that simply ensures the growth of a child into one that maximizes the child’s growth (O’Reilly: Intensive Mothering, Oct 16). One representation of this shift is identified by Sharon Hays as intensive mothering in which the mother prioritizes the rearing of her child over the advancement of her professional career by investing most of her energy, time, and financial resources into her child (Hays 414). The novel I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson can be analyzed through the perspective of intensive mothering. The protagonist, Kate Reddy, is a successful employee of a top investment managing firm in London who spends her
To begin with, young children are turning to drugs in order to satisfy their growing pain. After the terrible incident of residential schools, the neverending history of suffering can cause a child to reciprocate their feelings by abusing substances. In Tracey Lindberg’s Birdie, it’s stated briefly of the ways in which Bernice relies on alcohol on many lonely nights.
The theme of this story is feminism. Having gone through postpartum depression herself, Gilman?s story was strongly personal. During the time period that she wrote it, woman?s rights were limited. The character in this story felt she knew ways to recover herself from her depression, or ?baby blues?. Baby blues also known as postpartum depression is a form of severe depression after pregnancy delivery that requires treatment. Women may feel sadness, despair, anxiety, or irritability. The woman from the story wanted to get well and wanted to work. However, as a woman she was forbid by her husband to do this. Instead she was isolated from society, from being able to work, do the things she loved, or take care of her baby.
Her roommate, a seventeen-year-old girl named Andrea, is a recovering heroin addict who also has a history of self-harm. At first, Gwen refuses to have anything to do with the treatment programs and denies that she even has a drinking problem. One day, Jasper shows up to visit and slips her a bottle of Vicodin. The two then proceed to sneak away from the rehab facility for a day of partying. That night, Gwen returns clearly intoxicated and makes her way to her bedroom. The next day, she is confronted by Cornell, the rehab facility director and fellow recovering addict. He informs her that she has broken the rules of the facility and is being kicked out and sent to jail. Gwen becomes infuriated and continues to deny that she has a problem with alcohol and states that she can quit if she had the desire. She storms out of Cornell’s office and off to her room where she rummages through a tissue box to find her stash of pills. Gwen proceeds to take a pill of Vicodin, but spits it back out before swallowing. She then tosses the remaining pills in the bottle out the window proving to herself she does not need
Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love (Vermont 2014). “Tuesday Siesta” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “The Stolen Party” by Liliana Heker share many similarities and differences. Both short stories write about mothers who are struggling financially. Both mother characters in the stories were faced with a difficult circumstance, however, they each dealt with it in different ways. Lastly, the mothers in the short stories were portrayed differently. The mother in “Tuesday Siesta” was soft spoken and gentle whereas the mother in “The Stolen Party” was more abrupt, harsh and unrefined.
Reflection: (word: 350) I feel this is another version, or we can say, a feminist version of Death of a Salesman. They both talk about a broken father and his unhelpful influence on his children, twisted sexual acts between family members, curious male figure outside the family who has control over the father, father’s suicide allowing the family’s freedom, and criticism of the American Dream. Willy and Manuel are both failures as fathers and husbands, and cause tension within their families. Even though the reasoning behind Willy and Manuel’s suicides maybe different, the results are almost the same with both families gaining a newfound freedom.
Normative practices of mothering in Western popular culture have largely been defined by the patriarchal institution of motherhood that is male-controlled and oppressive to women. Three commandments that are central to the patriarchal institution include privatization by situating women’s work solely in the reproductive sphere, individualization which places childrearing as the responsibility of only the mother, and depoliticalization which discourages mothers from engaging in political or social action (O’Reilly, “Introduction” 4). However, in the margins of the institution exist groups of mothers who reclaim power by creating autonomous spaces for themselves that are female-defined and women-centered. These mothers, who are outlaws of the
In her essay, “Motherhood: Who Needs It?”, Betty Rollin emphasizes the pressures of motherhood that society puts on women and highlights the fact that becoming a mother is not a natural instinct.
Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood as an African Feminist Text. Upon my first reading of Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, I immediately rejoiced--in this novel, I had finally encountered an account of a female protagonist in colonial and postcolonial African life. In my hands rested a work that gave names and voices to the silent, forgotten mothers and co-wives of novels by male African writers such as Chinua Achebe. Emecheta, I felt, provided a much-needed glimpse into the world of the African woman, a world harsher than that of the African male because women are doubly marginalized.
“The Joys of Motherhood” by Buchi Emecheta reveals an interesting struggle between one’s own core values and the core values of others. The protagonist Nnu Ego begins her journey of self-discovery alone and barren. It is not until later that she sees being barren as a gift and being fertile as a burden. This drastic shift is brought on by her move from Ibuza to Lagos and the difference in culture she is exposed to as time progresses. In the novel, Nnu Ego faces obstacles that relate to changing gender roles in the community of Lagos, resulting in the shift of her beliefs from those established by her upbringing in Ibuza.