BETWEEN MOTHERS AND SONS: Women Writers Talk About Having Sons and Raising Men

“The challenge for mothers of sons is to realize that because we do not share a sexual identity, that because we have not grown up in a male body, we cannot presume to understand everything there is to know about our sons’ worlds.” — Patricia Stevens
Between Mothers and Sons is the first anthology in which women writers attempt to answer the question that all mothers have contemplated in the course of mothering the opposite “Who is this male child who came out of my body?” Or, as a pregnant Mary Gordon said when her doctor told her she was having a boy, “Oh, my God. What am I supposed to do with one of them?”
From the earliest days of nursing to the good-byes of college and looming adulthood, these writers collectively explore, in a thrilling range of styles and sensibilities, the delights and frustrations, the deep and often conflicted emotions, they feel in their roles as mothers to their male children. Between Mothers and Sons resoundingly and unflinchingly celebrates this journey we are all making with our boys.

with essays

Julene Bair † Janet Burroway † Robb Forman Dew
Deborah Galyan † Mary Gordon † Joy Harjo † Anne Lamott
Susan Lester † Jo-Ann Mapson † Leigh McKinley
Valerie Monroe † Naomi Shihab Nye † Eileen Pollack
Jewell Parker Rhodes † Patricia Stevens † Sallie Tilsdale
Kris Vervaecke † Patricia Williams