The Other Mother: A Lesbian's Fight for Her Daughter (Living Out)

By Nancy Abrams

Book Overview

On a spring day in 1993, Nancy Abrams helped her daughter dress for day care, packed her lunch, and said good-bye. Next she drove to court, where she learned that in the eyes of the law she was nothing more than "a biological stranger" to the child she helped bring into the world and raise. That was the last time she would see her daughter or hear her voice for five years.
The Other Mother begins as Abrams and her female lover decide to start a family together. With giddy anticipation, they search for a sperm donor, shop for baby clothes and crib, and attend childbirth classes. But despite their high hopes, the relationship begins to fall apart, and they separate when their daughter is a toddler. Problems between the two intensify until, shortly before her daughter's fifth birthday, Abrams loses custody.
In unprecedented depth, Abrams's compelling narrative examines the social, legal, and political implications of gay and lesbian parenting. Her haunting memoir asks the question, "What makes a mother?" It is a question that biological parents, co-parents, adoptive parents, step-parents, and divorced parents must each answer in their own way. In telling one woman's story, The Other Mother makes a solid case for legal protections, including marriage, for lesbian and gay families.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0299164942
• ISBN13: 9780299164942
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A must-read

Given the current debates about gay marriage and gay rights, this book is a must-read. By telling one woman's story, Nancy Abrams makes a case for why it is imperative to make the legal benefits of marriage available to all people. But this is not just a political work by any means. It is a moving and well-told narrative.

Abrams: Another look at lesbian motherhood

This book let me look at this woman as a woman first, then a lesbian, and lastly a mother. Abrams has a unique way of letting the reader in on her most intimate feelings, she does this by very often sharing journal entries taken from the time she was fighting for her daughter. On page three, I knew I was in for it, I was already crying. For me, this book gave me more a sense of myself as a lesbian. I have struggled in the past to find myself in the gay culture only to be left out in the cold. Nancy's book, not only details her life events that came to be, but she surrounds her story with other parts of her life. Her relationship, her work, her self. You really get a sense of her as a woman, just a person trying to make it in the world. The journey Abrams takes you through will make you angry. The way the system works for gays and lesbian parents is horrendous. Abrams and many others have to prove their relationships to their children, usually in a long drawn out court battle. I loved this book because I finally feel a connection, with a lesbian. Abrams pours her life out on these pages, leaving her readers to pick up their own piecies. She is not alone in her situation, she has just been brave enough to share it with the world. I am thankful she did. It left me with a better sense of what our community is fighting for, and why we need civil unions and other legal protections. It is easy to forget in the midst of the politics of it all, that this is about the love between a woman and her child. Yes, it is heartwrenching, but in the end reedeeming. Reminding all of us, gay or straight that the ties of family are beyond blood.