House Course Explores Idea of 'Motherhood As Intellectual Problem'

Not many classes have reading lists that include the works of breathing guru Dr. Lamaze.

But when Margaret Bruzelius created the syllabus for Mather 117: "Narratives of Motherhood," she used his works, among many others, to offer her students an eclectic view of motherhood.

"I wanted to treat the representations of motherhood as an intellectual problem," she says, "a way in which it's often not treated."

The class of seven women and three men opened its discussion this Wednesday with a quote from the Bible.

Sitting one seat from the end, Bruzelius shuffled through her notes and read a verse from Genesis: "In sorrow though shall bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

The class groaned.

Bruzelius, a lecturer on literature, laughed before pushing the class to consider its response.

"Should women suffer in child-birth?" she asked. "Is this natural?"

In a seminar focusing on the biological, cultural, social and political aspects of motherhood, a central question concerns what is natural verses what is unnatural.

"Everyone in this class will come up against ideas of what is natural," Bruzelius says. "They will be ambushed by very emotional rhetoric."

But many students say they took the class for precisely that--its challenge to cultural and biological assumptions.

Holly C. Lynch '97 says she took the class because she is curious to learn to what degree "what we see in our own mothers is culturally constructed."

On the other hand, some women in the class enrolled in the seminar for more obvious reasons.

"I had a classic reason," says Erika D. Vie-Carpenter '96. "I am going to be a mother."

Moreover, the students say they adore Bruzelius, who carefully steers, not dictates, the seminar and does so with passion.

After her comments on Genesis, Bruzelius, clad in a dressy black suit with vibrant pink and red flowers on the jacket, steered the discussion into the readings for the week: Dr. Lamaze's writings on his well-known breathing techniques, which he believed could make childbirth painless.

As the Lamaze reading demonstrates, the material for the class is pulled from a variety of genre. The syllabus ranges from movies such as "The Manchurian Candidate" to the literature of Simone de Bouvoire. It even includes Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Students praise the diversity of the syllabus because they say it reflects the assorted ways in which our society thinks about motherhood.

"Laura Ingalls Wilder shows how the syllabus is not strictly high culture," Vie-Carpenter says. "I read her when I was ten."

"I think Dr. Bruzelius's point is that we read about motherhood in a lot more ways then we notice," Vie-Carpenter says.

During a discussion of Lamaze, a male student--a football player--observed that if his leg gets bent backwards while playing ball, "it's supposed to hurt." The same is true of child-birth, he said.

The class chuckled at the comparison of football to childbirth, but the male insights are appreciated by the class, according to students.

Bruzelius says she was surprised by the male turnout for her class, saying the first time she taught it at Yale, the entire class was female.

However, she emphasizes that "I don't think this is just a class for women."

The women students in the class, while also surprised by the male turnout, welcome the new perspective the men bring to the class.

"Sometimes the guys will say something I haven't even thought of," says Vie-Carpenter. "It's important to keep some sort of perspective and not get tied up in the femaleness of it all."

In short, the men contribute a new dimension to the discussion, Bruzelius says.

Ultimately, awareness is the point of the class, she says, because the class isn't going to solve any problems of motherhood.

"I can't help the students think these problems through to the end," Bruzelius said. "I can help them think about maternity.

Students praise the diversity of the syllabus because they say it reflects the assorted ways in which our society thinks about motherhood.

"Laura Ingalls Wilder shows how the syllabus is not strictly high culture," Vie-Carpenter says. "I read her when I was ten."

"I think Dr. Bruzelius's point is that we read about motherhood in a lot more ways then we notice," Vie-Carpenter says.

During a discussion of Lamaze, a male student--a football player--observed that if his leg gets bent backwards while playing ball, "it's supposed to hurt." The same is true of child-birth, he said.

The class chuckled at the comparison of football to childbirth, but the male insights are appreciated by the class, according to students.

Bruzelius says she was surprised by the male turnout for her class, saying the first time she taught it at Yale, the entire class was female.

However, she emphasizes that "I don't think this is just a class for women."

The women students in the class, while also surprised by the male turnout, welcome the new perspective the men bring to the class.

"Sometimes the guys will say something I haven't even thought of," says Vie-Carpenter. "It's important to keep some sort of perspective and not get tied up in the femaleness of it all."

In short, the men contribute a new dimension to the discussion, Bruzelius says.

Ultimately, awareness is the point of the class, she says, because the class isn't going to solve any problems of motherhood.

"I can't help the students think these problems through to the end," Bruzelius said. "I can help them think about maternity.