Hi folks,

Here's a write up of a new book on Motherhood.  Notice the line I've bolded 
below.  Clearly mothers would be happier if we just left them alone to 
quietly bottle-feed their babies......

- Dia

3.  THE MASK OF MOTHERHOOD: How Becoming a Mother Changes Our Lives and Why 
We Never Talk About It (Penguin, May 2000; $12.95; 288 pages) asks what is 
the mask of motherhood?  Author Susan Maushart points to the 
media:
·  images of Supermom, complete with briefcase, "serious" hair, and a pair of 
designer-clad preschoolers scampering happily to help with the dishes the 
apologetic tones of the embarrassed mother who murmurs over the screams of 
her toddler's tantrum, She's not normally like this..."
· breast-feeding propaganda that portrays bottle feeding as a form of child
abuse
· women's magazines that promise "Great Sex after Baby!"
Because of this "mask of motherhood," women maintain a conspiracy of silence
about their roles, leaving many new mothers in the dark about the constant
and unending demands of their infants.

Susan Maushart, the mother of three young children, who was born and raised
in Freeport, New York and holds a Ph.D. from New York University.  She is
now a Senior Research Associate in the School of Social Sciences at
Australia's Curtin University.  A nationally syndicated columnist, Maushart
is also the author of Sort of a Place Like Home, which won the Festival
Prize for Literature at the Adelaide Writers' Festival.

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