A Child on Her Mind

Stories of women who mother are central to this book. The women come to mothering through birth and adoption, as birth mothers, placing mothers, adopting mothers and teen mothers. Woven between the women's narratives, the author offers reflective commentary intended to show the mothering experience in its complexitybodily, culturally, and as the rootbed of relationship. Using phenomenological research, Bergum brings the mothering experience to lightas it is livedexploring themes of love and pain, responsibility, belonging, choice, transformation, and quickening of the moral impulse to attend to the child. Bergum's intent is to encourage thoughtful reflection about what is learned through motheringby women and by societyin order to create and sustain a society that is good for children and the women who mother them.