A Million Mom marcher considers modern motherhood

Camille Peri edited the anthology "Mothers Who Think"

May 15, 2000
Web posted at: 5:41 p.m. EST (2141 GMT)

(CNN) -- Even if some of us once thought that our mothers fit the 1950s definition of "mom" ala June Cleaver, few would make that claim today. Camille Peri of Salon.com, who took part in Sunday's Million Mom March, has taken a close look at modern motherhood, editing a collection of essays on motherhood for the anthology, "Mothers Who Think" (Pocket Books).

She recently talked to CNN's Kyra Phillips and Miles O'Brien about her book.

CNN: Why don't we talk about where the idea came from. You were frustrated as a journalist, weren't you, with regard to how the issue was being covered of motherhood?

PERI: Exactly. As a journalist and as a mother I was frustrated with the kind of depictions of motherhood that I saw. It seemed motherhood's either treated as a lifestyle issue or in the parenting magazines there's kind of an obsession with potty training and conquering clutter and the busy work of motherhood and I think motherhood is much bigger than that.

CNN: The big picture is important. You managed to get some fairly illustrious writers to weigh in on this subject. When you approached them, were they all eager and willing?

PERI: They were very eager and willing because, as I said, there aren't very many outlets to write about motherhood seriously and honestly and all of them had things they wanted to say as a mother. So they were very happy.

CNN: You talk about a lot of honesty coming out of this book. An interesting chapter that I found was "Raising Biracial Children." Talk a little bit about that.

PERI: Yeah, that was a piece -- well, we actually have several pieces that touch on that -- by Karen Grigsby Bates. Well, actually, a piece that she did was on raising, worrying that her black son was becoming too white, her privileged black son was becoming too white. And there are other stories that talk about raising biracial children and the problems that come with that.

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CNN: What, if you had to come up with a common thread which runs through these stories, if that's possible, what would you say it is?

PERI: You know, I'm not sure that it's really possible. What we tried to do was get this whole wide range of emotions that are part of motherhood. I think that it's this wonderful, intoxicating, delicious experience and it's also really difficult and trouble sometimes and mundane and I think we really were after that huge range of feelings.

CNN: What moved you the most as you put this book together and you read everything, obviously, all the different opinions? What touched you the most, do you think?

PERI: I think possibly Susan Straight's piece about being a single mother of three young girls and just how difficult it is with no backup. I think that just the way that she beautifully describes how hard that is. What touched me in a different way was Ann Lamott's piece -- Ann Lamott was a columnist for "Mothers Who Think" and her pieces on mother anger, which she treats very humorously, but it's something that all mothers feel and nobody can talk about.

One other piece that touched me a lot was Sallie Tisdale's kind of tribute to teen-age boys. And I have two sons of my own. But it was -- teen-age boys don't get a lot of good press these days and it's really a tribute to them and all their kind of gawky, smelly wonderfulness.

CNN: All right, briefly, we don't have much time, but how much has motherhood changed since the days of June Cleaver?

PERI: Oh, I think the changes are huge. I think that ... the biggest change, of course, is the majority of mothers work outside the home and I think we've kind of gone from the idea that you can have it all to having to do it all. And there's no generation of mothers has ever had more expected of it than this generation and I think that's ... having a huge impact on society and we haven't quite caught up with it yet.

CNN: So maybe the common thread is utter exhaustion, who knows?

PERI: That's definitely a thread that runs through everything we do.

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Simon & Schuster
   'Mothers Who Think'

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