It's a Boy--Part II

Yesterday and today, I'm writing about boyhood as part of the It's a Boy virtual book tour. The anthology's editor, Andrea Buchanan, writes about her virtual book tour here, and you can read an interview with her here. Yesterday, I shared my own thoughts about having a boy. Today, I'm reviewing the book.

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It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, is a collection of 30 essays about the mother/son relationship that cover everything from pregnancy to dealing with a teenage boy. The anthology was conceived of and edited by Andrea Buchanan, the prolific Philadelphia literary force who is author of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It; editor of It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters and the upcoming Literary Mama Anthology; and managing editor of the Literary Mama web site.

Buchanan writes in the introduction to It's a Boy, "By far the topic on which I received the most submissions was what I ended up calling 'prenatal boy apprehension': stories of mothers who were conflicted about having sons or had never considered the possibility of having anything other than a daughter." As a recovering PBA sufferer, I can identify with those concerns. It's interesting to me that with the advent of ultrasound, women are introduced to their babies as a "boy" or a "girl" in the abstract, before they have a chance to meet their child in person; I wonder how much ultrasound contributes to this apprehension.

I enjoyed reading the essays about older boys, to see what I'm in for in a few years. Some of the essays dealt with ambivalence towards male aggression. In "The Bully's Mother," Karen E. Bender writes about the year her son was "the hitter, the pusher, and the biter of his preschool class." In "It Takes a Village," Jennifer Lauck describes an incident in which her son and two older boys threaten another kid with a knife. Both women do their best to help their sons stop unacceptable behavior and deal with their aggression in an appropriate way.

The two essays I found most moving were very different. In Susan Ito's "Samuel," the author writes of her heartbreaking first pregnancy. When Ito developed life-threatening preeclampsia two weeks before her baby would become viable, her doctors told her that if she waited two weeks to have the baby, she would die. She argued with her husband over carrying the baby to term, and lost. I can't read the essay without crying; Ito's love for the baby and her agony at the choice come through clearly. Years later, the mother of two healthy girls, she is still haunted by her lost son.

Jacqueline Mitchard's essay, "The Day He Was Taller," is one of the shortest in the collection. It made me tear up too, but in a good way. Mitchard describes the day that her son purchased dress clothes on his own to attend a Bar Mitzvah and surprises her with his appearance:

He wore a suit with a discreet black-on-black pattern, and a jet stud replaced a tie at the neck of his cranberry-colored dress shirt. Wet-comb marks grooved his longish blond hair. He looked so handsome, I couldn't find words that wouldn't have embarrassed him; so I just kissed him on the cheek.

And that was when I noticed it. To kiss him, I had to stand on my tiptoes.

This essay shows the widowed mother's appreciation for her growing son, and the poignancy of her realization that his father is not there to see him as an adult. Intellectually, I know that Ben will someday be taller than I am, but looking at my 18-month-old I find it difficult to believe.

I do have one quibble with this collection: many authors share a similarly progressive perspective. Ona Gritz writes in "Son of a Guy," "Year ago, I decided that gender differences were foisted upon us by a limiting culture...." Many of the writers share those beliefs, as is to be expected in a book in which the editor says, "I was specifically looking for pieces that questioned the cultural assumptions we have about boys." Many of the writers of these essays are like me: intellectual, liberal, feminist. While I enjoy reading about people who have had similar experiences, I would have liked one or two essays from people whose outlook on life was considerably different from mine. What about an essay about how a military wife looks at her son? What about a strong religious perspective? I'm not at all advocating gender stereotypes, but a few thoughtful essays such as those would have widened the scope of the book.

All in all, though, I recommend this book to mothers of sons. It's been fun being a member of the blog book tour.