Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-390) and index.

"Maternal Desire is the first book to treat women's desire to mother as a legitimate focus of intellectual inquiry and personal exploration. Shedding new light on old debates, Daphne de Marneffe provides an emotional road map for mothers who work and mothers who are at home. The book both explores the enjoyment and anxieties of motherhood and offers mothers in all situations valuable ways to think through their self-doubts and connect to their capacity for pleasure."

"Drawing on a rich tradition of writers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Carol Gilligan, and Susan Faludi, as well as her experience as a psychologist and mother of three, de Marneffe illuminates how we, as individuals and as a society, express our desire to care for children. By treating maternal desire as a central feature of women's identity rather than as an inconvenient or slightly embarrassing detail, we can look with fresh insight at controversial issues such as child care, fertility, abortion, and the role of fathers. De Marneffe unearths ideas that have unwittingly shaped our inner lives, and offers women a more complete vision of liberation.

Revolutionary and transforming, Maternal Desire is a book about ideas, a book about culture, and an invitation to self-reflection."--Jacket.

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