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Voices from the New Zealand Wars | He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa

Bueskens’ pursuit of longstanding, unresolved questions in the field makes for a satisfying read. Australian Mothering goes on to showcase the deep engagement betweenhistorical and sociological research in Maternal Studies. Historians examine the development of inequities in childbirth, childcare, workplaces, and homes. Social scientists uncover their impact on contemporary Australian women and families. The volume’s essays can be arranged and read in various pairs or groups to highlight underlying conversations about feminism, politics, andmothering. Contributors track the pressures applied to single mothers, from offering babies for adoption in the 1840s to governments’ harmful, technical changes to child support and single parent benefits in the 2000s and 2010s. Others explore the distinctive development of childcare in Australia to support women in the workforce, as well as its current format, which exacts particularly high costs from parents, especially mothers. A striking set of chapters illustrate the denial of mothering to Aboriginal women and queer women across time, as well as the lack of support for the vital work of migrant mothers. Beautifully written essays engage with medical and commercial influences on Australian women’s experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Among these, Alison Bartlett argues that educational advocacy describing the medical benefits of breastfeeding has failed to convince Australian women. She provides a delightful list of new ‘reasons to breastfeed’, such as, ‘Because I can watch TV when I’m doing it’, ‘Because I can watch my baby’s face when I’m doing it’, ‘Because I can read philosophy when I’m doing it’ (288). Scholars also uncover Australians’ private experiences of family life – of early parenthood, fatherhood, and domestic violence – and the ways that familial and generational memories have shaped adult lives. The first and final thematic chapters connect the past and present of political motherhood. Marilyn Lake analyses Australia’s early history of state support for maternity and Julie Stephens shows how radical histories of maternalism have been erased. With the volume’s editors, Stephens considers both ‘the conceptual, historical and political links between women and thematernal, and feminist critiques of this relationship’ (459–60). Her essay demonstrates that the rediscovery of political motherhood provides ‘a potent instrument for activism’ in the twenty-first century (472). The volume’s contributors showcase the wide range of research materials that inform Maternal Studies, including royal commissions on fertility decline (1903) and the separation of Aboriginal families (1934), adoption advertisements (1840s–1950s), oral history interviews, divorce files, letters addressed to queer publications and advocacy groups, Australians’ autobiographical and creative writing, questionnaires, time use data, policy analysis, and more. Building on this expansive evidence base, Australian Mothering’s essays are beautifully – often creatively – expressed. The volume is testament to the quality of both Maternal Studies scholarship and its editors’ curation.