NEWS SOURCE: SocioPathways
Motherhood Confidential, the anti-advice book, bridges the Ideology Gap to help women out of the dogma-doo and into personalized parenting
OAKLAND, Calif. /Send2Press Newswire/ — It’s a shame-fest on Dr. Phil. Oprah hosts an in-studio stoning. And Dr. Laura divides and conquers. Smackdown action in the steamy ring of parental correctness as dogmas duke it out. And outraged viewers play the at-home version. It sizzles. It smokes. And it sells. But what does it really signify?
Is there really a Great Divide between parents of disparate ideology? And if so, is the chasm really so impassable?
Motherhood Confidential authors, Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel, chant a harmonious “No!” Yet ten years ago their answer would have been, “Absolutely!” That was when motherhood was tearing them apart.
Wasn’t motherhood supposed to unite women in a secret sisterhood?
In the Ro-Sham-Bo of New Maternity, Motherhood creams Sisterhood!
“Joan and I were 3,000 miles apart geographically and 180 degrees distant in our parenting,” says Cohen. “I needed her support, but I was afraid to confide in her. Afraid she’d judge my parenting. After all, wasn’t I judging hers?”
Different mothering choices can fracture common ground. She breast feeds, you bottle feed, she goes back to work in three weeks, you stay home for fourteen years. Doesn’t one of you have to be wrong? Pretty soon you’re friendshipwrecked on opposite shores of motherhood. But it’s not differences that alienate, but fear of those differences. Big Mother Is Watching!
And that fear begins in a deeper chasm. The psychological rift inside every mother. The gap between who she thinks she’s “supposed to be” and who she really is. The Personhood/Parenthood Gap. Here’s where the real action is: The Clash of Subliminal Titans on the Dark Side of Maternity.
“That was where Linda and I found our new common ground.” Linda recalls the turning point, “We were both dealing with parenting dogmas and toxic taboos about what we should and shouldn’t be feeling or doing. That’s why we call Motherhood Confidential a conspiracy of validation.”
Bechtel describes the pressures to conform as “trying to squeeze yourself into a tiny Perfection Suit. What do you do with all the parts of you that don’t fit? How do you shed all those ‘ugly’ pounds of wisdom and self-awareness you’ve gained over the years?
Well, unfortunately, that’s where psychological liposuction comes in: repression, displacement, denial, projection. The old stand-bys for coping with undesirable psychological elements.”
But these best friends didn’t want to give up personhood for parenthood. The challenges of combining dual–and sometime dueling–voices in the telling of Motherhood Confidential gave the authors a new perspective. “We could see how incredibly complex and layered it was, unique to every parent and child,” explains Bechtel. “No outsider can tell you what’s best. It’s truly subjective–like Rashomon. There is no Correct Parenting. There is only personally-correct parenting.”
According to the authors, women may not be as divided as the media likes to portray. But women divided against themselves can appear divided against each other. Motherhood Confidential reunites women with themselves and each other by leaving the Superhighway of Absolutes to bump down the pot-holed frontage road of authenticity.
Award-winning comedy duo authors, Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel, combine their love of existential psychology, their backgrounds in counseling, early childhood education and 47 years of guilt-ridden parenting in Motherhood Confidential: The Strange Disappearance of My Best Friend, coming to bookstores Friendship Day August 7, 2005 from SocioPathways, ISBN.0-9760930-0-6, soft cover, 304 pp, 13.95.
More information: www.MotherhoodConfidential.com
News issued by: SocioPathways
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Original Story ID: (187) :: 2005-03-0321-002
Original Keywords: SocioPathways, Award-winning comedy duo authors, Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel, mother, mothering, motherhood, parent,parenting, maternity, child,children,parenthood,new book,advice,taboo, dogma, shame,psyhological rift,women, alienate,authenticity,personhood, sisterhood, early childhood education, counseling, correct parenting, media, myth, books, book news, publishing SocioPathways
NEWS SOURCE: SocioPathways | Published: 2005-03-21 13:19:00
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