Lives Of Girls Research Articles

The Revenant (review)

Reviewed by: The Revenant Kate Quealy-Gainer Gensler, Sonia . The Revenant. Knopf, 2011. [336p]. Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-96701-6 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-375-86701-9 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89732-0 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 8-12. While working her way through boarding school at the end of the nineteenth century, Willemina receives a summons home from her mother, who is now unable to keep up with the work of the family farm. Unwilling to return to that mundane rural life, Willie instead steals a classmate's identity and accepts a teaching position at the Cherokee Female Seminary—despite the fact that she is only seventeen herself, not even a high-school graduate, and certainly no teacher. When she arrives in Indian Territory, it soon becomes clear that she is not alone in keeping secrets: her students whisper about an unfortunate drowning accident that took a girl's life last year, a fellow teacher alludes to an unhappy spirit, and Willie herself begins to hear an insistent tapping sound in her new room, the former residence of the river's victim. Her beloved (but now deceased) father, however, always told Willie to keep her head about her and that she does, even when a note she uncovers in her dresser suggests that the accident may have actually been the result of foul play and that the dashingly handsome Eli Svenstar may be to blame. Stunningly taut and entirely compelling, this blend of historical fiction, supernatural mystery, and romance will please fans of Jennifer Donnelly and Saundra Mitchell. The intimidating halls of the Seminary, ruled by the iron-fisted Miss Crenshaw, provide the heated class wars and forbidden courtships that typify the best boarding-school mysteries. Though the focus stays mostly within the school itself, leaving the surrounding Cherokee culture largely unexplored, Gensler points towards a fair bit of research in her author's note and portrays the students with respect and detail. Willie is a headstrong but tremendously flawed protagonist, and her status as both a hero and a liar, even at the close of the book, will make for some interesting discussion. [End Page 468] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

THE DIRTY WORD

For the first two years of my daughter's life, I was scheduled to teach an Introductory Logic course. While I had taught Critical Thinking courses in the past, having to steep myself in categorical and propositional logic left a lasting impression on my own thinking. More importantly, though, these courses influenced my speech-habits during the early years of my child's development. By no means do I intend to assert that my child somehow gained some cognitive benefit from my communication with her during these early stages of her life. Rather, it seems that she acquired the particular virtue of tolerating her father's habit of voicing strangely worded utterances. As she has passed the three and half year mark, her own communication skills and means of expression are well on their way towards developing into her own distinct styles. This I know because we talk a lot. Often times these dialogues are about day care, her friends, or princesses and lots of pink stuff. But sometimes a gem of an argument develops.

“To the Uplift and Protection of Young Womanhood”: African-American Women at Iowa's Private Colleges and the University of Iowa, 1878–1928

In the fall semester of 1894, Ida Mae Godfrey entered Iowa Wesleyan College (IWC), a small predominantly white coeducational institution in the southeast Iowa town of Mount Pleasant Godfrey, like dozens of whites and eight blacks before her, had graduated from Mount Pleasant High School and was soon faced with a decision concerning the next steps in her life. She could, as did many young black and white women, marry, settle, and raise a family, but her personal and professional aspirations likely convinced her that a college education was the best choice. Although enrolled at IWC, Godfrey most likely lived at home while she attended school. This allowed her parents and extended family to shield her from some of the racial prejudices and possible sexual abuses she may have experienced had she gone away to college and worked as a domestic in a white home to pay for school. In temporarily exerting control over their daughter's life, Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey helped to preserve Ida's mental and physical energies so that she might advance through school and enter one of the most respectable occupations open to black women in the late nineteenth century—teaching.

The Vinyl Princess (review)

Reviewed by: The Vinyl Princess Karen Coats Prinz, Yvonne. The Vinyl Princess. HarperTeen, 2010 313p. ISBN 978-0-06-171583-9 $16.99 R Gr. 7-10 Allie has a single-minded devotion to records on vinyl. Schooled by her father since she was in diapers, she's now sixteen, and one of the most knowledgeable employees [End Page 301] of Bob & Bob Records on the famous Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. She decides to start a blog and a zine, hoping to convert others to her vinyl obsession. Meanwhile, she's majorly crushing on a mysterious new boy hanging around Telegraph and trying to fend off the attentions of a sketchy guy from New York who may be as obsessed with vinyl as she is, while her parents and her friend Kit have romantic troubles of their own. As much a homage to place as the story of one summer in a teen girl's life, this narrative captures the community feel of locals in a college town, watching their avenue of indie shops go through the ups and downs of retail. The record store is hardest hit, of course, taken down by the savage combo of easy downloading, big-box retailers, and a bad economy. But life goes on, and it needs a soundtrack, which Allie is happily capable of providing through her choice of playlists and her blog reflections on some of the greatest works ever pressed into vinyl. A silent but interesting subtext sidles in as the internet giveth and taketh away: the brick-and-mortar record store can't compete with the downloaders, but eBay and blogging keep the collectors connected to each other and their albums. Give this to fans of Audrey, Wait! (BCCB 4/08). Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Gender, Educational Attainment, and the Impact of Parental Migration on Children Left Behind

Estimation of the causal effect of parental migration on child education is complicated by the likelihood that factors influencing parental migration also affect child educational attainment. This paper exploits variation in siblings' ages at the time of parental migration to get around this endogeneity problem, arguing that parental migration after a child is 20 should have no direct effect on a child's educational attainment. The results point to a positive effect of paternal migration on education, but the results are gender-specific, suggesting that pushing a father's U.S. migration earlier in his daughter's life can lead to an increase in her educational attainment of up to 1 year relative to delaying migration until after she has turned 20. In contrast, paternal domestic migration has no significant effect on educational investments, suggesting that father absence does not play a major role in determining children's educational outcomes. Instead, these results suggest that the marginal dollars from remittances relax the household budget constraint and enable families to invest in girls' education. They are also consistent with the findings from the literature on intrahousehold allocations where an increase in female bargaining power, coinciding with a simultaneous increase in household resources, results in better outcomes for girls and not boys.

Fathers, Daughters, and Anorexia Nervosa

The study described the nature and meaning of the father-daughter relationship throughout the daughter's (N = 11) life from the perspective of the daughter, who has been in a 2-year recovery from anorexia nervosa (AN). Particular consideration was given to the changes over time. A narrative analysis method was used to examine the daughter's stories. Several patterns emerged. This study is an exploration of the paths and processes that lead to, through, and into recovery from AN with regard to the father-daughter relationship. The results have implications for nursing practice, research, and health policy.

Coming of Age with Proctor & Gamble: Beinggirl.com and the Commodification of Puberty

Puberty and her first period are among the most important rites of passage in a girl's life. Cashing in on this, transnational corporate giant Proctor & Gamble created the website beinggirl.com in 2000, to provide “a forum for girls to explore their collective interests and receive guidance in choosing the right feminine protection products provided by Tampax and Always at the very start of their cycles.” Featuring podcasts, polls, quizzes, an advice column, games, downloads, and a discussion board, beinggirl.com looks like many other commercially-created online spaces for girls. Employing an “experiential analysis” methodology, this article deconstructs beinggirl.com as a site that has both a corporate imperative as well as the self-proclaimed intention of providing a space for girls.

DISRUPTING MASCULINITIES

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. For comment on women's representation in the engineering profession in Australia, see Bureau of Labour Market Research (1985, 1); Lewis, Harris, and Cox (2000 Lewis , Sue , Ros Harris , and Barbara Cox . 2000 . Engineering a better workplace: A diversity guide for the engineering profession . Canberra : National Women in Engineering Committee, Institution of Engineers, Australia . [Google Scholar], 6–7); Roberts and Ayre (2001 Roberts , Pam , and Mary Ayre . 2001 . Did she jump or was she pushed? A study of women's retention in the engineering workforce . Canberra : National Women in Engineering Committee, Institution of Engineers, Australia . [Google Scholar]); Crompton, Le Feuvre, and Birkelund (1999 Crompton , Rosemary , Nicky Le Feuvre , and Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund . 1999 . The restructuring of gender relations within the medical profession . In Restructuring gender relations and employment: The decline of the male breadwinner Rosemary Crompton . Oxford : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]); and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data in Ayre (2001 Ayre , Mary . 2001 . Women engineers: The continuing crusade, a review of the literature relating to the work satisfaction of professional women engineers . Transactions of Multi-disciplinary Engineering GE25 : 1 – 34 . [Google Scholar], 8). 2. The project followed upon the survey conducted in 2000 by the Women in Engineering Committee of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, which sought to develop an understanding of the reasons behind the high female attrition rate in engineering. The project was funded by the University of South Australia and the Institution of Engineers. The sample group was drawn from respondents to a survey of women engineers conducted by the Women in Engineering Committee in 1999 (APESMA 1999 Apesma (Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists & Managers, Australia) . 1999 . Professional engineer remuneration survey report . Melbourne : APESMA . [Google Scholar]; Roberts and Ayre 2001 Roberts , Pam , and Mary Ayre . 2001 . Did she jump or was she pushed? A study of women's retention in the engineering workforce . Canberra : National Women in Engineering Committee, Institution of Engineers, Australia . [Google Scholar]). State-based women in engineering groups supplied the authors with a small number of additional contacts for interview. Original interview data are in the care of the authors. 3. See the work of Hacker (1989 Hacker , Sally . 1989 . Pleasure, power and technology: Some tales of gender, engineering, and the cooperative workplace . Boston : Unwin Hyman . [Google Scholar]); Roberts and Lewis (1996 Roberts , Pamela , and Sue Lewis . 1996 . The national position paper for women in engineering for the review of engineering education . Melbourne : Swinburne University of Technology . [Google Scholar]); McLean et al. (1997 Mclean , Christopher , Sue Lewis , Jane Copeland , Sue Lintern , and Brian O'neill . 1997 . Masculinity and the culture of engineering . Australasian Journal of Engineering Education 7 : 143 – 56 . [Google Scholar]); and McIlwee and Robinson (1992). 4. See also Hacker (1989 Hacker , Sally . 1989 . Pleasure, power and technology: Some tales of gender, engineering, and the cooperative workplace . Boston : Unwin Hyman . [Google Scholar]). 5. See also Cockburn (1983 Cockburn , Cynthia . 1983 . Brothers: Male dominance and technological change . London : Pluto . [Google Scholar], 1985 Cockburn , Cynthia . 1985 . Machinery of dominance: Women, men and technical know-how . London : Pluto . [Google Scholar]). 6. See also Stepulevage (2001 Stepulevage , Linda . 2001 . Becoming a technologist: Days in a girl's life . In Virtual gender: Technology, consumption and identity Eileen Green and Alison Adam . New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar]), who challenges the disassociation of women and technology, drawing attention to the familiarity of young white working-class girls to technologies associated with their parents’ work and the industrial areas in which they live. 7. The data also suggest that the numbers of women are lower in the more ‘masculine’ areas of engineering like mechanical, electrical and aeronautical, compared to say chemical and civil. Increases in numbers of women in civil engineering, however, may reflect the popularity of environmental engineering among women (Lewis, Harris, and Cox 2000 Lewis , Sue , Ros Harris , and Barbara Cox . 2000 . Engineering a better workplace: A diversity guide for the engineering profession . Canberra : National Women in Engineering Committee, Institution of Engineers, Australia . [Google Scholar], 9).

Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother (review)

Reviewed by: Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother Ericka Hoagland J. Brooks Bouson. Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother. Albany: State U. of New York P, 2005. ix + 242 pp. The figure of the mother haunts Jamaica Kincaid studies, just as it haunts Kincaid herself. Bouson's work emerges from that milieu and seeks to understand how what can be termed Kincaid's obsession with her mother and the dominating mother figure she represents has evolved throughout Kincaid's career. In her study, Bouson applies shame and trauma theory to Kincaid's semiautobiographical works as she exposes the layers of intense emotional pain at the heart of [End Page 630] Kincaid's relationship with her mother Annie Drew, who died in 1999. Building on Kincaid's own words, which are interspersed throughout Writing Back, Bouson concludes that writing is as much an act of solace and self-rescue for Kincaid, as it is an act of self-fashioning. Bouson claims that her study is a departure from the "psychological readings" of Kincaid's works that "have focused largely on the regressive preoedipal dynamics" of the mother-daughter relationship, as well as examinations that see that relationship primarily as a reflection of the colonized/colonizer dynamic (5). As the study's title implies, Bouson focuses on the role of memory, in particular, how the shame and trauma associated with the mother-daughter relationship Kincaid chronicles in her fiction shapes her memory. Reacting against her mother's attempts to write her daughter's life, Kincaid deploys memory as a defensive mechanism to assert her independence from her controlling mother (37). In so doing, Bouson notes, Kincaid became the "daughter-writer who publicly exposes shameful family secrets," from her own illegitimacy to her brother's closeted homosexuality and painful death from AIDS (13). Just as shame precipitates the disclosure of memories and secrets her mother would rather forget, Bouson argues that the trauma Kincaid experienced as a consequence of that shame prevents full disclosure; at the same time, this explains why there is "endless repetition in Kincaid's work" which in turn reflects "her difficulty in confronting and working through the past" (39). Writing Memory is organized in three parts. "In the Shadow of the Mother" covers Kincaid's early fiction, including two novels, Annie John and Lucy, which prove particularly central to Bouson's argument. The second part, "A Very Personal Politics," examines Kincaid's nonfiction, and the third part, "Family Portraits," discusses Kincaid's later fiction. Bouson describes an artist who in her younger years experimented with transformation in an attempt to both find herself and remove herself from her painful past. It was writing, not the ever-changing clothes and hairstyles she sported as a young writer in 1970s New York that truly facilitated her quest for self-identity and eventual transformation from the "shame-sensitive Elaine Potter Richardson" to the angry Jamaica Kincaid (21). Kincaid's initial writings, the short story "Antigua Crossings" and the story collection At the Bottom of the River, set into motion the dominant script of her writing: the intense power struggle between a shaming mother and her shamed, traumatized daughter. While these texts anticipate in particular Lucy and Annie John, they lack the anger of those later works, suggesting that Kincaid was just beginning to scratch the surface of her intense anger. These early works also frame other emotions Kincaid would come to revisit throughout her career: her [End Page 631] twinned feelings of love and hate towards her mother, her fear and ambivalence towards her homeland, and her anger at the colonial enterprise. Bouson notes that Kincaid's young fiction is full of concealment, which as is as significant a trope in Kincaid's work as her anger. More importantly, Bouson establishes Kincaid's concealment as a clear indicator of the trauma the writer has experienced as a result of her painful relationship with her mother. Kincaid's writing, Bouson points out, became more autobiographical and more invested in revealing and telling truth as Kincaid grew as a writer. This truth-telling was, and continues to be compromised, Bouson asserts, by the ever-circling presence of shame...

The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through Adolescenceby SuEllen Hamkins, M.D., and Renee Schultz, M.A.; New York, Hudson Street Press, 2007, 352 pages, $23.95

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through AdolescenceDavid Moltz M.D.David Moltz M.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.5.723AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Ten years ago the authors, a psychiatrist and a therapist, who both had seven-year-old daughters, joined with other women in their Western Massachusetts community to develop "a plan that would enable our girls to thrive through adolescence, and that would enable us to remain close and connected to them." The result was a mothers' group and a mother-daughter group that continued for ten years, as the girls and their mothers successfully negotiated adolescence. The purpose of this book is to share the experiences and the lessons of the Mother-Daughter Project with other mothers of young girls so they can apply them in their own lives.The first section of the book explores the forces in our society that make being an adolescent girl, and being the mother of an adolescent girl, difficult and that encourage separation between mother and daughter. Drawing on the work of Carol Gilligan and others, this section presents an alternative vision, one of individuation and connection that allows the daughter to develop autonomy while maintaining intimacy. Part 2 is organized by the chronology of preadolescence and adolescence, with each chapter exploring the specific developmental tasks and challenges of one year in a girl's life and offering specific suggestions and tools for addressing these challenges.The project is based on the belief that mothers and daughters together can fight the social forces that could separate and weaken them. But this work is too hard to do on one's own; it requires a community of like-minded women and their daughters. The authors created such a community in the project, and they advise readers to start their own group, or at least to join with even one other woman and daughter to support their efforts.This model is based on intergenerational reciprocity: mothers thrive if daughters thrive, and vice versa. Over and over in the book, mothers are asked to do their own work, clarifying their experiences, values, and beliefs before raising an issue with their daughters. Often this preliminary work involves looking at their relationship with their own mothers, so the model becomes three-generational.The approach is normative; stresses and difficulties between mothers and adolescent daughters are seen as a common, natural part of normal development. They need to be addressed but not as deficits or as pathology. They are dealt with proactively and preventively; by using an understanding of normal development, issues are predicted and addressed before they become problems.The absence of fathers is notable in this model. In the culture of the Mother-Daughter Project, the primary affiliation group is not the nuclear or even extended family but rather a community defined by gender. Girls become part of the community of women, and this is where they find their strength.Although leaving out fathers presents an incomplete view of the world of the adolescent girl and her family, it does not detract from the stated goals of the authors. They want to help young girls—and their mothers—navigate the currents and shoals of adolescence while maintaining closeness and drawing strength from each other and from a community of women and girls, and they have accomplished that. They offer an overall vision and a multitude of specific tools to help accomplish that vision. They are very successful in achieving what they set out to do.Dr. Moltz is affiliated with Sweetser Community Integration Services, Brunswick, Maine. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 58Issue 5 May, 2007Pages 723-723PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2007 Volume 58 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2007 Published in print 1 May 2007

The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through Adolescence

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through AdolescenceDavid Moltz M.D.David Moltz M.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.5.723AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Ten years ago the authors, a psychiatrist and a therapist, who both had seven-year-old daughters, joined with other women in their Western Massachusetts community to develop "a plan that would enable our girls to thrive through adolescence, and that would enable us to remain close and connected to them." The result was a mothers' group and a mother-daughter group that continued for ten years, as the girls and their mothers successfully negotiated adolescence. The purpose of this book is to share the experiences and the lessons of the Mother-Daughter Project with other mothers of young girls so they can apply them in their own lives.The first section of the book explores the forces in our society that make being an adolescent girl, and being the mother of an adolescent girl, difficult and that encourage separation between mother and daughter. Drawing on the work of Carol Gilligan and others, this section presents an alternative vision, one of individuation and connection that allows the daughter to develop autonomy while maintaining intimacy. Part 2 is organized by the chronology of preadolescence and adolescence, with each chapter exploring the specific developmental tasks and challenges of one year in a girl's life and offering specific suggestions and tools for addressing these challenges.The project is based on the belief that mothers and daughters together can fight the social forces that could separate and weaken them. But this work is too hard to do on one's own; it requires a community of like-minded women and their daughters. The authors created such a community in the project, and they advise readers to start their own group, or at least to join with even one other woman and daughter to support their efforts.This model is based on intergenerational reciprocity: mothers thrive if daughters thrive, and vice versa. Over and over in the book, mothers are asked to do their own work, clarifying their experiences, values, and beliefs before raising an issue with their daughters. Often this preliminary work involves looking at their relationship with their own mothers, so the model becomes three-generational.The approach is normative; stresses and difficulties between mothers and adolescent daughters are seen as a common, natural part of normal development. They need to be addressed but not as deficits or as pathology. They are dealt with proactively and preventively; by using an understanding of normal development, issues are predicted and addressed before they become problems.The absence of fathers is notable in this model. In the culture of the Mother-Daughter Project, the primary affiliation group is not the nuclear or even extended family but rather a community defined by gender. Girls become part of the community of women, and this is where they find their strength.Although leaving out fathers presents an incomplete view of the world of the adolescent girl and her family, it does not detract from the stated goals of the authors. They want to help young girls—and their mothers—navigate the currents and shoals of adolescence while maintaining closeness and drawing strength from each other and from a community of women and girls, and they have accomplished that. They offer an overall vision and a multitude of specific tools to help accomplish that vision. They are very successful in achieving what they set out to do.Dr. Moltz is affiliated with Sweetser Community Integration Services, Brunswick, Maine. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 58Issue 5 May, 2007Pages 723-723PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2007 Volume 58 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2007 Published in print 1 May 2007

History Lesson for Girls (review)

Reviewed by: History Lesson for Girls Leslie Wootten History Lesson for Girls by Aurelie SheehanViking, 2006, 352 pp., $23.95 Aurelie Sheehan's novel History Lesson for Girls leaped into the public eye soon after its release, when Oprah recommended it as a 2006 summer read. People Magazine boosted its reputation with a positive nod. Such mainstream attention is indicative of the novel's accessible appeal as a beautifully composed coming-of-age tale that chronicles a traumatic year in a young girl's life. The book follows Sheehan's sweet-natured first novel, The [End Page 185] Anxiety of Everyday Objects (2004), and her eclectic collection of stories, Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant (1994). History Lesson for Girls underscores the notion that history is a malleable, living entity, a vital touchstone that connects our past with our present. Narrated from the vantage point of adulthood, the novel unfolds through the eyes of Alison, who vividly recalls 1975, her thirteenth year, "the year we moved to Weston, the year my parents went haywire, the year my back started curving out of control." In that transitive time between child and teen, an awkward corrective brace for scoliosis makes Alison a target of ridicule at school. Popular Kate throws her an unexpected lifeline, the only classmate to befriend—and defend—Alison against rude gibes from insensitive girls and boys in her affluent Connecticut community. The girls bond at a pivotal age when emotional and physical changes churn in concert with awakening hormones. Kate is graceful and brazen, smoking cigarettes, drinking and ditching school on a whim. Alison, bound neck-to-waist in medical armor, seeks solid footing in an unfamiliar town. While the girls are dissimilar in appearance—opposites in many ways—they both hail from dysfunctional families and share a passion for horses. Alison's parents are united in concern about her physical well-being, but their marriage falters as they bicker over everything else. Kate's family is wealthy but scarred by a bullying, egocentric father whose riches derive from his role as a "new age" shaman. Instead of safe harbors, both households are tension-laden dens of discomfort and pain. For Alison and Kate, horses, not family, provide solace and sustenance. When something traumatic happens, racing on horseback offers intense, albeit temporary, relief. In fact, it is on horseback that the girls are most at ease with each other, and with the world. But life, of course, with its myriad complications cannot be outrun. Soon enough, change alters the course. This novel, we come to understand, is history in the making—a living tribute to the memory of a childhood friend never forgotten: "The thing is, [Kate] saved me that year, and then it was my turn. That's what friendship is. That's how to make history." In looking back, Alison not only puts the tragic year in perspective but pays homage to a lost friend, bearing witness to and embracing a life that might otherwise have slipped unappreciated and unsung into the foggy mist of time. "Because it matters," Alison reflects as the novel [End Page 186] winds to a finish. "Our history," she adds, as if to emphasize the expansiveness of "our," a word that circles all of us in a broad, timeless, embrace. Copyright © 2006 The Curators of the University of Missouri

West of Then: A Mother, a Daughter, and a Journey Past Paradise

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessWest of Then: A Mother, a Daughter, and a Journey Past ParadiseHarriet P. Lefley Ph.D.Harriet P. Lefley Ph.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2006.57.5.728AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The memoir West of Then is about the ripple effects of a heroin-addicted mother on her daughter's life. Tara, a New Yorker, returns to her native Hawaii to seek her mother in a city park where homeless junkies live. It is one of many such scenes. Abandoned by her mother, Karen, and remanded to the custody of her father and stepmother at the age of seven, Tara continues the search and the approach-avoidant dance that punctuates her life and her mother's life. Across the years, Karen reaches out and then disappears, and their reunion is impeded either by shame or by drug-induced oblivion. She rarely has a phone, and her addresses are temporary. She moves from man to man and from dilapidated housing to street to shelter, the parameters of her life defined by accessibility of drugs. Beautiful, personable, and born into a once-wealthy, old Hawaiian family, Karen could lead a life of privilege. Instead she descends to the bottom of the underclass. She has three daughters with different fathers, steals, probably prostitutes, and is flighty and irresponsible, but she is also helpful to people who are needful or sick. She still manifests remnants of the qualities that made her children love her when they were young. The author's primary positive relationship is with her stepmother, Debbie, but the pull of the once-adored biological mother remains.The book is a portrait of emotional damage and resilience, which like many human characteristics can be captured only weakly in empirical data. A prevailing theme is the agony of hope. Tara describes her family's cyclical experience, common in mental illness and substance abuse, of curvilinear progress and raised and dashed expectations. There is almost a fear of remission because of the need to believe in and the known inevitability of another piercing disappointment.The book is written in a style of choppy memories that zigzag across time. Many pages are devoted to Hawaiian history, which provides a social context of promiscuity, substance abuse, illnesses brought by Western sailors, and culture loss reinforced by missionary prohibitions. Despite a caring father and stepmother and orderly childrearing from an early age, Tara leads a purposeless, party girl existence. Her mission seems to be reuniting with her damaged mother in order to clarify her own inchoate life. She leaves her job, apartment, and a nascent romance in New York in order to find and heal the damaged mother. In a series of heartbreaking events, it becomes clear that the mother cannot be healed by a daughter's devotion.This true story is about addiction, and the familial experience is all here—the self-destructive behavior of a loved one, the constraints of the system, the family's search for help, and their final acceptance of reality while still clinging to hope. It is not a new story, but some elements will be edifying to clinicians who work with children or adults who suffer from rescue fantasies or from fused identity with impaired parents.Dr. Lefley is professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 57Issue 5 May, 2006Pages 728-728PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2006 Volume 57 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2006 Published in print 1 May 2006

My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessMy Thirteenth Winter: A MemoirEmily R. MyersEmily R. MyersSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2006.57.5.741aAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail A terrific book called My Thirteenth Winter tells the story of a girl who grows up with a learning disability in math, time, and sequencing called dyscalculia. She talks about the struggle that she has and the challenges that come with the disorder. The book also provides insight into the girl's life and her growing up. Samantha Abeel's book is for everyone. Even people who don't have a learning disability can read the book and find it meaningful. Her style of writing makes the reader feel like the author and reader are friends and that she is speaking to only the reader. The book teaches a lesson to everyone: how to overcome an obstacle and make the best out of the person you are. The book is incredible. I found myself getting excited—finally someone had written about what I had felt for a long time, struggling with my own learning disability. I could identify feelings that the character talked about and could remember when I was going through a similar situation. It comforted me to know that I was not the only one who had gone through these problems, and reading the book made me comfortable with myself.I would absolutely recommend this book, both to someone who has a learning disability and also to someone who doesn't know much about the toll it takes on a child's life. The book speaks for all of us and gives a great message. It is also helpful for those who provide psychiatric services, because it helps children struggling with learning disabilities to understand that they are not the only ones who have them. My only regret would be that, like Sam Abeel, I never understood I was not alone and could overcome the challenge of learning.Ms. Myers is in the ninth grade at Cushing Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 57Issue 5 May, 2006Pages 741-742PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2006 Volume 57 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2006 Published in print 1 May 2006

My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessMy Thirteenth Winter: A MemoirEmily R. MyersEmily R. MyersSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2006.57.5.741aAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail A terrific book called My Thirteenth Winter tells the story of a girl who grows up with a learning disability in math, time, and sequencing called dyscalculia. She talks about the struggle that she has and the challenges that come with the disorder. The book also provides insight into the girl's life and her growing up. Samantha Abeel's book is for everyone. Even people who don't have a learning disability can read the book and find it meaningful. Her style of writing makes the reader feel like the author and reader are friends and that she is speaking to only the reader. The book teaches a lesson to everyone: how to overcome an obstacle and make the best out of the person you are. The book is incredible. I found myself getting excited—finally someone had written about what I had felt for a long time, struggling with my own learning disability. I could identify feelings that the character talked about and could remember when I was going through a similar situation. It comforted me to know that I was not the only one who had gone through these problems, and reading the book made me comfortable with myself.I would absolutely recommend this book, both to someone who has a learning disability and also to someone who doesn't know much about the toll it takes on a child's life. The book speaks for all of us and gives a great message. It is also helpful for those who provide psychiatric services, because it helps children struggling with learning disabilities to understand that they are not the only ones who have them. My only regret would be that, like Sam Abeel, I never understood I was not alone and could overcome the challenge of learning.Ms. Myers is in the ninth grade at Cushing Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 57Issue 5 May, 2006Pages 741-742PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2006 Volume 57 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2006 Published in print 1 May 2006

Adapting Stella Dallas: Class Boundaries, Consumerism, and Hierarchies of Taste

In her 1961 autobiography, Olive Higgins Prouty reflected that [t]he feature of most interest about Stella Dallas is, I think, number of its reincarnations. First serialized for nearly two million readers of American Magazine in 1922 and published in book form in 1923, Prouty's poignant tale of class hierarchy and maternal sacrifice went on to become a 1924 stage play, a 1925 silent an Oscar-nominated 1937 film starring Barbara Stanwyck, and a long-running radio soap opera. Indeed, Stella outlived her creator, reappearing in a third film starring Bette Midler in 1990. Yet to Prouty these adaptations, filled with melodrama and sentimentality, were something of an embarrassment: How much better if Stella had never emerged from covers of a novel. Certainly adaptation of Stella to stage and screen and finally radio did not help me to acquire kind of reputation I desired (Pencil Shavings 156). It is doubtful, however, that avoiding mass media would have spared Prouty from being, like so many popular and critically acclaimed women novelists of 1920s and 1930s, relegated to dustbins of history by a masculinist, modernist establishment. (1) Arguably, Stella and her creator have been remembered only because of these adaptations: while novel went out of print for nearly four decades, 1937 film remained in circulation and was elevated to canonical status by feminist scholars in 1980s as an exemplary woman's film, a powerful alternative to Hollywood's male gaze. Only since its 1990 reprinting as part of a literary cinema classics series, illustrated with stills from has Prouty's novel gained a modicum of scholarly attention. (2) My concern here is less to establish Prouty in canon than to examine what novel and its reincarnations reveal about evolving discourses of class, taste, and cultural hierarchy in America. The adaptation and reception history of Stella Dallas provide a particularly valuable case study not only because Prouty's comment so clearly exposes intense anxieties centered on boundary lines of literature and mass culture but also because Stella's story is so explicitly and centrally concerned with issues of taste and class distinction. In all versions, Stella Dallas depicts in excruciating detail difficulties faced by a working-class woman who marries above her station. Rather than living happily ever after, in Cinderella fashion, Stella quickly alienates her husband with her flashy dress, coarse manners, and lowbrow tastes, and they separate. Although daughter of this mistaken marriage grows up beautiful and refined, it soon becomes clear that Stella's hopeless vulgarity threatens her daughter's social chances. (3) When Laurel loyally refuses to leave her mother to live with her father and his elegant new wife, Stella drives her away, destroying girl's respect by pretending to love a boorish alcoholic whom Laurel loathes. Stella ends up alone and anonymous, but glowing with maternal pride, standing in a dark, rainy street to glimpse through a distant window spectacle of her daughter's new life (in novel, her debut; in films, her wedding to a wealthy young man). Even after being reunited with her married daughter in radio serial depicting the later episodes in life of Stella Dallas, Stella continued to struggle to reconcile her devotion to Laurel with what program's announcer daily described as the differences in their tastes and worlds. (4) The long popularity of this tale suggests that American mass culture throughout first half of twentieth century--particularly those genres created by and for women--was far more attuned to, even obsessed with, intricacies of class distinctions and barriers than usually acknowledged by our myths of America as a classless society. Yet, as story was repeatedly reinvented in new periods and media, we can observe significant shifts both in ways that class distinctions are defined and in degree of sympathy given to Stella's aspirations. …

Weigh the Promise, and: Cannibals & Carnivores

Weigh the Promise The woman in me pulls off a pink sweater and places it in a drawer, lights her candles, apricots spicing the air. Part of me wants to throw this ring back, but part of me is happy to have a diamond. Is love sad? Part of me wants to chew the ring up and die – part of me always wants to die, I pick this piece of myself up all the time – mend its mittens and kiss it on the mouth. I love its mouth – the little beast. A doctor on the radio said that a woman should never split herself into halves – division has consequences. But I've [End Page 156] quit believing the radio waves, even though the little beast has failed to join me – tuning in news stations for more details on every kidnapped girl's life. Part of me is ready to stand at the altar decorated in flowers and kiss my lover's lips. It's like a trapeze. We're on opposite sides, and the minister is asking me to sail through the air and land on my lover's perch. Do I trust myself? The net below may swallow me like a fish, like a flounder – caught, seared and served on a platter. A platter is what prompted me to put on shoes and run. I was a quick kindergartner, not just one more girl pinned to a sink, handling each china plate until it was dry. One time I thought I was pinned – in a car – metal snapped through metal to get me out. After I knew I was going to live, I dedicated my life to me. Here comes my lover's footsteps. The clamor of his shoes travels in the floor – from the sidewalk, through the front door, down the hallway to my study. They vibrate in my ring. A physicist might claim that this is impossible, unless my lover travels like King Kong, his energy swinging every object in the house. And some would argue that because the physicist holds no love for me that his words are closer to being true than [End Page 157] my own mother's. I'm home. I'm home, I hear him call, (I think I love this ring!) the little beast rolling in her new grave as he moves through rooms to find me. Cannibals & Carnivores The power of a mouth lies in what it will not eat and people don't like piranhas – not because of their exaggerated teeth, but because we fear their determination to eat even themselves. Or so the animal expert believes, standing on a riverbank – his rubber boots pressing down the grass. And so, he says, the Indian tiger is revered by the natives, of course: her spirited stripes, padded feet. And the valley dwellers do not hunt her, because she will eat their flesh, but not her sister's or her own children's. She, like us, looks at the chain the universe has her by and nods.

BOOK REVIEW: Kalu, Anthonia C. BROKEN LIVES AND OTHER STORIES. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003.

Reviewed by: Broken Lives and Other Stories Joseph McLaren Kalu, Anthonia C. 2003. Broken Lives and Other Stories. Athens: Ohio University Press. 183 pp. $19.95 (paper). As indicated in the foreword, by noted critic Emmanuel Obiechina, the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970, has been a subject for numerous Nigerian literary works. The Eastern Region, which named itself Biafra, broke away from the federal republic but could not sustain its independence, and as a result of famine and overpowering military force, was subdued. On the Biafran side was the argument that "the Biafran secession was a popular and spontaneous desire. It was not just an alternative; it was a last resort" (Nwankwo and Ifejika 1970:269). The war literature was produced by "the major writers of the day," including Achebe, Okigbo, Nwapa, and Ekwensi, who were "involved on the Biafran side." Among the many fiction titles are Isidore Okpewho's The Last Duty (1976), Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra (1982), and Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1994). Although he does not emphasize the women's issues of Broken Lives and Others Stories, Obiechina calls the pieces "unforgettable tales with extraordinary clarity of vision and insights" (Obiechina xii, xiv). [End Page 83] With a useful glossary, the collection suggests in the author's preface the importance of lived experience and memory. When Kalu mentions "deferred dreams" in remembering "irretrievable childhoods," she evokes the African American poet Langston Hughes (xxi). The ten stories are titled "Independence," "Angelus," "The Last Push," "Camwood," "Broken Lives," "Children's Day," "Ogbanje Father," "Relief Duty," "Osondu," and "The Gift." The opening stories are told from the perspective of a young girl, whose school experiences are rendered through straightforward storytelling. "Independence" presents the transition to nationhood, and recollections of songs and a marching competition are mingled with details of family relationships. Independence is likened to a masquerade that "would come and carry us all into the unknown" (19). The sequencing of stories is effective, for "Angelus" also deals with school years. Although muted by war anxieties, the mood is optimistic because of "the promise that had been made to our great, great-grandparents at colonization" of becoming "Africa's future" (32). The meaning of war is brought home by the bombing of the Roman Catholic mission school, the death of staff members, and the departure of the narrator, who becomes alienated from her schoolmates after she leaves in a military Jeep sent by her father. In the "Last Push," the narrator indicates how young children know "the deadly screeches of the latest explosives from the shrills [sic] of older, more familiar ones" (45). The characters are aware of the political "recognition" of Biafra by Gabon and France, but this news causes the ill-founded hope that "recognition" augured the end of the conflict, which brought "months of fear, uncertainty, hunger, and, always, death" (49). The statement "after the war" is compared to the "certainty that Christians speak of Heaven," and the complex reactions include conceptions of "nation" and "madness" (54–55). In the next story, "Camwood," there is a shift to a young girl's preparation for marriage. Ulomma, who grinds camwood, used to make body lotion, has left a win-the-war school. Her gender and age group are symbolized by grinding camwood, which "Like a girl's life, it was difficult at best" (75). The title story, "Broken Lives," advances time to cease-fires when areas such as Akasi have fallen to federal troops. The predicament of those returning is evident in unornamented, stark statements: "The only sure thing was the brutality of the enemy troops, who had brought soldiers from other countries to help restore peace and unity" (92). Here Kalu focuses on a postwar reality, involving fear of abduction and rape, the latter painfully portrayed as a tragedy that traditionally demanded "propitiation rituals" (96). The tenuous position of women such as Nneoma is reflected in her abduction and what it means for the "new peace" (105). The story "Children's Day" returns to childhood characters, dislocation, and situations where "people mostly lived fragmented lives" (115), the dominant theme of the collection. Despite "broken lives," the continuity of familial expectations...

A Historian's Many Pasts

All children, sooner or later, learn that something preceded them, and that the universe did not spring into being at their birth. Most also come to know some small part of history through their parents' accounts or those of their grandparents. There is always a thrill of discovery when children learn how it used to be before they were born, or, even better, about some intimate part of a parent's long-ago life that is shared with the child. My thrill came early and it came with a shiver. As a child of parents who knew the Holocaust, the most tomblike of pasts, in all its details of death and destruction, I learned that the past was real and immediate, and that it explained who you are and who you might become. One of my first memories is asking my mother what had happened to 'them' those children taken away never to return. She had no doubt been telling me about these children. She never entirely answered, or, if she did, I do not remember what she said. I do remember what I said: 'Will they take me too?' Her answer was emphatic, 'No! never'. And so it was, they did not come to take me away to wherever it was that the others had gone. But she could not stop me from being drawn to the past, not to their past exactly, but to a sense that the present was never sufficient, and that the past was as real as the present and quite as meaningful. This was partly because my mother had an excellent memory and she told me many stories about a past that I needed to know about. My mother enjoyed many of her memories and telling about them. She also suffered from them, but as a child I always thought of them as our special bond. Her memories, so important to her, so full of life, also became my memories. Memories of her past I made into the past which I had never known, and which I would some day come to call history. After we came to the United States my special past also made me different. It provided me with a gauge, a way of evaluating what I heard, saw and read, and how I acted. Whether any of these were on a par with what I knew of her life and of the many lives she had come to represent became the basis for my judgement of what was real and important. It also provided me with a world of contrasts to reflect upon. This gave me an anchor and an albatross; both added weight to a little girl's life. Because the world was a place full of callow people, many did not see the weight of this knowledge, I thought. Whenever I found my parents lacking in some essential quality that others valued youth, good looks, modernity,

Preparedness for Taking Care of Elderly Parents: “First, You Get Ready to Cry”

ABSTRACT The results reported in this article are from a larger, mixed-methods study of the factors influencing the preparedness of adult daughters for taking care of elderly parents. This article focuses on findings surfacing in unstructured interviews with daughters revealing an area of caregiving not addressed in survey items, that of daughters' emotional reactions to multiple losses. Actual and anticipatory losses clustered into two categories: loss of the parent and loss of one's own youth. Implications for health care providers are detailed, including: recognizing each daughter's unique life situation; providing anticipatory and long-term emotional support and counseling; and assisting with problem solving, grief work, and making meaning of losses.