Fruitful: A Real Mother

by Anne Roiphe

Somewhere between the stern chiding of the religious right and the aggressive exhortations of the feminist movement stand most of today's women — many of them mothers struggling with the issues that today's economic and social standards make so difficult. At home or at work, they are followed by guilt. Combining poignant stories from her own life — as a divorced parent, novelist, and renowned journalist — Anne Roiphe illuminates the difficulties and the joys of being a woman who is both a devoted mother and a devoted feminist.

The result is a finely crafted and unique pro-feminist/pro-family position that calls for fruitful dialogue on quality childcare, on including men as full partners in parenting, and on defining family in ways that allow everyone to thrive. Emotional, clear-eyed, witty, and compelling, Fruitful offers a personal and profound healing message for every woman torn between her own ambitions, her family's needs, and her all-consuming, tumultuous, exhilarating love for her children.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Parenting, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1993

About the author

Over a four-decade career, Roiphe has proven so prolific that the critic Sally Eckhoff observed, "tracing Anne Roiphe's career often feels like following somebody through a revolving door: the requirements of keeping the pace can be trying." (Eckhoff described the writer as "a free-thinking welter of contradictions, a never-say-die feminist who's absolutely nuts about children"). Roiphe published her first novel, Digging Out, in 1967. Her second, Up The Sandbox (1970), became a national best-seller and made the author's career.

Roiphe has since published seven novels and two memoirs, while contributing essays and reviews to The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, and others. In 1993, The New York Times described her as "a writer who has never toed a party line, feminist or otherwise." Her 1996 memoir Fruitful A memoir of Modem Motherhood was nominated for the National Book Award

From 1997 to 2002, she served as a columnist for The New York Observer. Her memoir Epilogue was published in 2008, and another memoir, Art and Madness, in 2011.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dear friend gave this book to me before my daughter was born in the same way I give my friends Lamott’s Operating Instructions. This is an important and apt exploration of the permanently evolving state of motherhood. I wasn’t always on board with her perspectives on politics and feminism, and there are many places where she throws out opinions and generalizations that need support or further exploration. However, I found so much insight in this book. As the mother of a half-grown adult and an infant, as a sort-of stepparent there is validation and comfort here. We don’t need any more versions of What to Expect, we need more of this. Certainly add Fruitful to the thinking parent’s reading list.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book is "A Real Mother in the Modern World". The author went to college in the late 1950s, so she was having children in the sixties and she writes about motherhood and feminism from her point of view.

I found her perspective interesting, although as a product of my times, I could not relate to her feminism. An older woman once told me that I had no idea what women had gone through, implying that they had fought battles on my behalf. The author would probably agree with her statement. She makes many references to women being miserable and unfulfilled prior to the women's movement in the 70s. Her description of the militancy with which some women dismissed men, marriage, and motherhood made my jaw drop. Such anger and resentment!

Roiphe, however, does not share that same anger and dismissiveness. She talks in a lovely way about the joy she had and has in her children and of her love for her (second) husband. She acknowledges the difficulties of being a parent and step-parent, yet it is clear that she would not have made any different choice. The section called "The Real World" was the one I appreciated most. I dog-eared several pages, loving statements such as: "The switch from being the person at the center of their lives to being the last to know, the one they moved behind, around, was hard, painful, and not a relief at all. If I had listened to the noise in my head at the time I would have heard a constant tearing, a ripping, searing sound as their lives became their own." "If amputees have feelings in their phantom limbs, think how mothers feel about their phantom children." As she talks about women who are beyond their child-bearing years, she comments, "She is a biological creature with no further biological potential....But something in the way we were mothers makes it impossible for us to regain the beauty of a freestanding human being: we are more like ghosts attending a feast after our death, haunting the happy guests." All of those thoughts I could relate to.

But she ends the book with a manifesto called "Family Values and Feminist Visions". She exhorts feminists to rise up and demand better childcare so that women can be free to leave their children. She prefers open sexuality with pornography rather than the 'rigid repression and silence' of the past. She wants abortion legal and available to make life easier for women. She characterizes "the life the Christian right proposes" as "rigid, limited, reactionary, hypocritical, watched and watchful." So she prefers to seek utopia in the feminist agenda.

It makes me sad to see how Christians have not impacted society for good, so that people can have such negative opinions of us. What I know is that true fulfillment and joy comes in living for Christ, not for myself. The sacrifices I have made as a mother have been a privilege, made possible by my husband's working to support us. We are both committed to our family, and though we continue to make mistakes, we trust that God will bring good out of our efforts to please and glorify Him. I wish I could sit down with this woman and talk to her about God. I like her heart; it's her mind I'm not crazy about!

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are plenty of things Anne Roiphe says that I just don't agree with, mostly because she makes them up. But she admits to making up a lot of her assertions, and puts it out there at the beginning of the book that she doesn't know about most mothers. She only knows about herself, and her experience with motherhood. And despite the fact that I disagree with her plenty of times, I could see where she was coming from and the book was very interesting. She doesn't care whether or not she offends people, anti-feminists or feminists, it doesn't matter to her. Also, just like all her books, the writing was incredible.

This is one of the best, most thought-provoking books I have read in a long time.

[Kelly Holmes]

I got about 75 pages into this and couldn't bring myself to finish it. As a young woman contemplating becoming a mother one day, I found the book depressing. In fact, I decided to stop reading it because it had given me a negative filter through which to look at all things parenting-related. Maybe this is non-mother na

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a parent; it sensitized me to mothers- including my own and the mother i will one day be; an uncommon balance of reason and emotion; she is an incredibly self-aware writer

[Kathy Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly thought provoking...Anne Roiphe wonderfully weaves her own experience into the discussion of the emotions every mother - whether working outside the home or raising children - faces in our modern age.

[UpstateNYgal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little book about being a Mother, full of insight and common sense, but delivered in a warm and witty way. A great read for any mother of any age.

[Jonna Higgins-Freese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roiphe's writing is always specific and lyrical at the same time, and acknowledges paradox and nuance in a way that most writing about motherhood and marriage does not.

[Rachel Coyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best books on motherhood, relationships that i've read. glad i read it when i did.

[Deirdre Rasmussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect balance between the two sides of the "MommyWars." Finally - sanity about motherhood!

[Marta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get past the overuse of the word feminism.