Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "Great with Child"

Beth Ann Fennelly is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. Her book Open House won the 2001 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry for a First Book. Her 2005 collection of poems, Tender Hooks, was praised for showing "that there isn't a subject — no matter how ordinary or domestic — that can't be vitalized by an interesting mind."

Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother is her latest book, which she put it to the "page 69 test" and then reported back with the following:

When I was pregnant, I read books written by expert Moms--relentlessly upbeat, chock full of answers--and I was reassured to learn there was an answer for every problem a new mother faces. But after I gave birth myself, I found matters much more complicated. Of course, I wanted to be a good mom, do right by my child, but sometimes it was hard to figure out exactly what the right thing WAS.

A few years later, a younger friend and former student of mine got pregnant and panicked (she was moving to Alaska with her new husband, and her mom had recently passed away). I wanted to help her, so I pledged that I would write her every day. I didn't know when I made that promise that writing her letters would end up being as much for me as for her -- because new motherhood is often a blur of details, it was amazing to sit down and try to make sense of it, gain perspective. I wasn't so interested in providing answers as coming to understand my questions.

Time passed and my friend gave birth and loaned my letters to a friend, who loaned them to a friend, and before too long I learned someone was interested in publishing them; hence, Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother came to be. Although the book covers lots of different aspects of motherhood, meandering from research concerning the effect of pain medication on the mother's mind during labor to anecdotes about trying to balance work and family, I'd say page 69 is, I think, representative of the whole. It is from a letter I wrote my friend in which I muse about my daughter's hatred of her swim lessons, and my own dilemma concerning what a good mother would do--"Should I make her stick it out in the hopes that she'll grow to like swimming, and teach her not to quit? Or should I capitulate, say we're done with the pool, take her out for ice cream, and enjoy her relieved affections while showing her I'm responsive to her fears and limitations?"

I describe the giant temper tantrum my child had, and conclude on the following page: "What I want to take away from this: when Claire throws a fit, I need to remember that she hates it as much as I do. She doesn’t want to lose control as she does when her limbs are flailing, her screams rising, her eyes stinging with tears. If she could stop herself, she would. I need to remind myself of that, instead of focusing on my own frustration, or embarrassment, or, more rarely, amusement. These little people are capable of the same emotions we are, the same terror and rage. Even when I see the cause for her emotions is trivial, the passion in her emotions is real, and the costs are also real, the exhaustion and remorse. I need to be respectful of this, respond in a way that dignifies her."

Many thanks to Beth Ann for the input.

Among the praise for Great with Child:

"Captures the doubts and frustrations as well as the joys of motherhood.... Her missives are alternately moving, funny, and practical, with an unusual honesty about just how hard it is to be a young mother."
—Margo Hammond, St. Petersburg Times

"My wife and I read Great with Child in the middle of a particularly sleepless and challenging time in our daughter's life; we found ourselves instantly calmed and reassured.... A wise and deeply honest book—one that any parent or expecting parent needs to read."
—Dean Bakopolous, author of Please Don't Come Back from the Moon

"A reflective, transformative book capable of enlightening beyond parenthood."
—Booklist

In this 2005 interview with Luan Gaines, Beth Ann talks mainly about her poetry collection Tender Hooks. In this interview with W. T. Pfefferle, she talks more