2011 - Talk Birth

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.
1. http://www.theperfectbirth.com/Aboutthebook.html
2. http://www.theperfectbirth.com/
♥♂►The Perfect Birth◄♀♥ (2011-07-28 14:09:03)
This was an extremely fair review, Molly, and I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your input– and I humbled
by it. :) I honestly can’t disagree with anything you said.
I just want to grind my corn! (2011-07-29 08:33)
[1] If you know me in real life (or if you are my husband),
you’ve probably heard me use the phrase, ”I just want to grind my corn.” I’ve been meaning to write a blog
post about this idea for quite some time and when I posted my essay about ”[2]playing my music,” I received
a comment from a friend saying, ”I worry I’m not accomplishing what I’m capable of doing, but I know that
ditching my kids and simply pursuing my ’own thing’ would not be fulfilling.” When I read that, I knew that
the time for my corn grinding post had come. When I use the phrase, I’m envisioning some kind of ancient
tribe in which the mothers are working together grinding corn, while their babies are tied to their backs, and
the older children play nearby. While I do not literally want to live in primitive times (those corn grinding
mothers also probably had a lifespan of 35 years!), I feel as if mothering is ”meant” to be a communal activity
rather than a solitary one and I feel like babies and children are meant to coexist alongside their mothers as
they go about their daily work. Rather than intensive, child-focused, total-reality mothering, I think babies
are happy watching their mothers work and participating in the daily rhythms of the home and world with
no need for the mother to be ”rolling around on the floor in the glitter in her sweatpants” (see the book
Perfect Madness) while serving as a one woman entertainment committee. This age of individual mothers
caring for individual children in isolation from the larger ”tribe,” is a social and cultural anomaly when we
look at the wide scope of human history. Likewise, meeting for playdates isn’t what I mean either—I mean
more task-oriented, corn grinding work, than that.
In the book Perfect Madness, the author articulates what I mean when I say I want to grind my corn—the
need for something in between staying at home and working full time (basically, that working and mothering
simultaneously is the most natural and fulfilling approach, but our society does not make that combination
often feasible or comfortable):
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