Reviewed by: Mother Is a Verb: An Unconventional History by Sarah Knott Susan E. Klepp Sarah Knott. Mother Is a Verb: An Unconventional History. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. viii + 306 pp. Ill. $27.00 (9780374213589). Sarah Knott's book on motherhood, mothering, and the early stages of childrearing challenges the traditional conventions of historical analysis—conventions that were largely established in Germany in the nineteenth century. History, real history, is written by experts whose deep knowledge of particular men and events [End Page 141] is tested through the dispassionate arguments of other experts in order to reach conclusions that help move human knowledge ever closer to universal truths. Stylistically, the formality of the prose, the complex sentences, and the Latinate vocabulary signal the seriousness of the historical enterprise. Like the sciences, history is an academic discipline. Knott has written a book that is perhaps more suited to our own times: to email and tweets, to informality, to diversity of opinion and experience, to a focus on the self, and to despair over ever reaching some shared vision of an identifiable truth. So sentence fragments, slang, and short paragraphs that shift abruptly from one subject to another confound a simple, linear chronology and leave conclusions and meaning to the reader. Sources are rather lightly footnoted, previous scholarship is mostly unquestioned, and there is no index. Women are not only present but central to the narrative. Rather than borrowing from scientific discourse, Knott presents a seemingly artless, casual, living-in-the-moment prose style that combines her personal memoir, written in the mode of a Joycean stream of consciousness, with an appreciation of the specific "historical circumstances" that refute "false universals" (pp. 83–84). But Knott's approach turns out to be artful and carefully plotted, not artless or haphazard. Two chronologies are seamlessly intertwined. One is Knott's lived experience as she and her husband decide to have a child. Miscarriage and then another pregnancy follow, then birth, breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, sickness, love, worries, and more. Her second pregnancy and another child complete this narrative. Weaning ends both the book and the physical bond that embodies Knott's maternity. The second chronology provides the historical framework for Knott's personal experiences. Here the focus is on the English-speaking world of women in Britain and North America. From the late eighteenth century to the present large families, frequent pregnancies, and long experience with rearing infants have been giving way to smaller families and fewer births. Formal education and career options for women compete uneasily with childbearing and childrearing. These tensions are accompanied by the anxieties of inexperience, an ignorance heightened by the hectoring of medical and self-proclaimed experts. Driving the methodological choices Knott makes is the limited archival record on or by women. Before the seventeenth century there is virtually nothing in the archive authored by women. Even after literacy becomes more widespread, there is little on some topics. Not surprisingly, almost no woman takes to her pen to record contractions, crowning, and birth as they happen. Surprisingly, neither do the sources give much insight on "the basic question—What is the history of knowing what to do, what is the history of uncertainties felt or dispelled?" (pp. 172–73). To highlight the diversity of reproductive and personal experience, ethnographic anecdotes are interspersed within these chronologies. Examples of birthing practices among Native Americans, African Americans, British factory operatives, immigrants, aristocrats, lesbian, and single mothers are among those populating these pages, but so fleeting are their appearances that it often seems that these diverse mothers appear to have no history. [End Page 142] The book is a good read and should appeal to undergraduates and the interested public. Scholars who specialize in women, fertility, family, birthing, baby care, and mothering will find little that is unfamiliar in their areas of specialization, but will benefit from the juxtaposition of a wide range of ideas and practices. Given the abundance of detail and interpretation, the author's decision to avoid "maternal mortality, infant loss, or forced relinquishment" (p. 17) is curious, and the book says nothing of the too frequent violence against women and infants. I would...
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Jan 1, 2020
Natalie Bowkett + 2
Open Access