Serious Work: Jacqueline Rose and the politics of motherhood
May 2018
I started Jacqueline Rose’s book Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty on a winter afternoon when my children were sick. To keep misery at bay, I allowed my older son to watch Peter Pan, and while he was instantly absorbed in the adventures of Peter and the Lost Boys, I found myself distracted by the tragedy of Wendy Darling. Here was a bright, imaginative girl conscripted into playing mother to a vile little boy, a boy who seems to take great pleasure...