In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.
Rachel CuskRead
It's a taboo that comes back over and over, to suggest that women can feel divided - that you can love your child and want to do everything for it, and at the same time want to put it away from you and reclaim something of yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the complex emotions women face in balancing motherhood and self-identity.
Rachel Cusk's quote explores the internal conflict many women experience regarding motherhood. It addresses the societal taboo surrounding the notion that a mother can simultaneously love her child deeply and desire personal autonomy or individuality. This duality reflects the often unspoken struggle between nurturing obligations and the need for personal fulfillment, emphasizing that such feelings are valid and shared among many women.
Themes
MotherhoodIdentitySelfLoveConflict
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the challenges of motherhood at a women's support group.
More from Rachel Cusk
All quotes →As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.
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There is always shame in the creation of an expressive work, whether it's a book or a clay pot. Every artist worries about how they will be seen by others through their work. When you create, you aspire to do justice to yourself, to remake yourself, and there is always the fear that you will expose the very thing that you hoped to transform.
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Shame is something you'll find a lot of - particularly Catholic - girls feel about their bodies, about their sexuality, about their diet, about anything you like. Shame is the way you keep them down. That's the way to crush a girl.
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I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.
Rachel CuskRead
It seems to me that 'women's writing' by nature would not seek equivalence in the male world. It would be a writing that sought to express a distinction, not deny it.
Rachel CuskRead
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