It's a Girl!

And now for something completely different: Andrea J. Buchanan’s collection of essays, It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters.

This is the third anthology edited by Andi that I’ve had the happy opportunity to read, after It’s a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, and Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, co-edited with Amy Hudock. 

The writing is all wonderful but here are my standouts: The Food Rules by Ann Douglas, Breasts: A Collage by Rachel Hall, Baby Fat by Catherine Newman, Twenty Minutes by Jill Siler, and Isolation by Barbara Card Atkinson.

I’m tempted to reprint Isolation in its entirety but I’ll resist so that you’ll have the pleasure of reading it along with all the others in your own copy of the book because isn’t that a necessary tactile experience? feeling the paper between your fingers? feeling this thing that Andi made from the stories that she and the other contributors made about mothering or almost mothering or longing to mother the daughters in the lives they are all making together?

Maybe it’s the mother in me, but I want you to read it so much that Fluffy and I plan to have another blind drawing from the names of all commenters on this entry and will send off my copy to the lucky winner.

In the meantime, here are a few pearls of wisdom from Atkinson’s, Isolation: “No man is an island but every new mother is a sandbar, with regular tidal flooding and the occasional threat of submersion.”

On the urge to hold our children: “Does it fade? or will I be a wizened old woman, hunched awkwardly as I attempt to blow raspberries against the belly of my exasperated, restrained fifty-year-old?"

On her daughter being a tween: "It’s her job to knock down the fences I erected simply by being here before her and it’s my job to repair them as best I can.”

As always, I love reading the writing. As always, I relax and recharge in the company of these women’s voices. As always, I feel nostalgic for a time passed: my son’s first few months, the newness and preciousness of my mommyhood, and awe at mystery of what will come: the march into teenage years, the memories of my own childhood, my relationship with my mother and father that raising Fluffy will surely unearth in me. For even though I’m a woman raising a son with nary a daughter in sight, there will always be collision and creation from the dance of who I am, who he is, who I was and who we are both becoming that is part of raising children, no matter the flavor.

There much more to say, specifically about the complicated dynamic of being a girl and raising a girl, of being a woman and raising a woman-to-be that was fascinating to read, how we feel about our bodies, our power, our roles, our choices, our expression of our femaleness. It’s why I longed and feared having a daughter--all that INTENSITY. But lo and behold, I was blessed with a boy who will be my only child and, frankly, I can’t imagine things getting more intense than they already are. 

So, maybe having a daughter will have shattered illusions, birthed epiphanies, and brought my own particular femaleness into sharper relief. I’ll never know. But I can slip into the skin of these writers, if only for an afternoon.

Isn’t writing grand?

Comments

[Robin]

Thanks so much for writing and sharing your stories about fluffy. I would love to talk to you sometime about RDI.

I always wonder what it would be like to have a daughter....

[christine]

My husband and I both come from large families. Now we have three boys of our own and I often think about trying for a girl. But part of me would feel like I was starting all over again: I've got this snips and snails and puppy dog tail thing down. I don't really know if I'm ready for sugar and spice. ...

[roo]

Oh! Oh! Put me in the drawing!

[Motherhood Uncensored]

I've seen this book everywhere - with all positive reviews. And as a mother of a daughter, I'm intrigued.

[Other Laura]

Hmm. I have TWO daughters and could use any advice possible, especially since we are now in the TWEEN years. Shudder. And really, I am aiming to win again. Can you win twice? Is it rigged? Should I just accept the loss gracefully? Hee.

Glad to see you back.

[Laura]

Hi, again : ) So very happy to see you writing again. Living with these kids is such a challenge and a blessing-- and RDI seems to make it a bit harder, but more wonderful (at the same time?) I am the daughter of an only girl child ,raised as the big sister of two girls, and now here I am raising two little boys-- one on the spectrum-- so it's complicated and difficult and (at times) really wonderful. Thank you for writing, Kyra.
---Laura

[~ danielle]

Kyra, I'm so glad you're blogging again. I know its selfish of me, I want you to have all the things that you stopped blogging for, I want many of them for myself too. It makes my heart sing to read your words. We are in a very dark place right now and reading about you and fluffy gives me so much hope. We have been blessed with a daughter and probably because of Bub's asd, I worry so much less about raising her (or maybe it's because she's all rolly polly smiley goo-gaa still). Thoughts of raising him, of him being a teenager and young adult, terrify me... truly.

Anyway, blah blah blah, I'm so glad your writing here again so that I can read it! I'm definitly getting this book from the library :)

[Anamaria]

I'm so happy I have one of each. Your niece sometimes reminds me very much of you, you know!

[Kristina Chew]

I have one older sister---always thought I would be best with a daughter.

Surprise surprise!