Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearingin America. Rima D. Apple. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2006. 209 pp.ISBN 0-8135-3843-2. $22.95 (paper). ISBN0-8135-3793-2. $65.00 (hardback).

Rima Apple’s informative book PerfectMotherhood charts the history of ‘‘scientificmotherhood’’ from its emergence in mid-19thcentury America up to the late 20th century.Throughout, it provides a review of the relation-ship between women as mothers, scientific andtechnological advances, and the (emergent) roleof the ‘‘expert’’ in childrearing. In doing so, itresonates with much more contemporary femi-nist debates around women’s lives as mothers,experiences of motherhood and agency, andwhere and how essentialism fits into maternallives. The book provides an interesting histori-cal perspective to these debates.

Using a range of literature including histori-cal documents, manuals, magazines, personalletters, and illustrations, Apple carefully detailsthe emergence of scientific motherhood. Sheprovides an historical mapping of the practicesand interactions that emerged through theperiod under review as medicine and sciencecame to stake its claim to an area of the privatesphere which was previously ‘‘unclaimed’’ and(probably) largely taken-for-granted and ‘‘invis-ible.’’ The emergence of scientific motherhoodcan at some level be seen to mark the relegationof women’s own knowledge and practicesaround childrearing and the prioritizing ofexpert, scientific knowledge. This has continuedto the present day, patterning the discourses thatshape in various ways contemporary maternalexperiences.

The book is divided into six chapters movingfrom motherhood in the late 19th centurythrough the interwar period and World War IIto the postwar period and finally to motherhoodin the late 20th century. The conclusions to thebook also include observations about mother-hood in the very early part of the 21st century.Throughout these chapters, the shifting relation-ship between mothers and experts and expertiseis traced by documenting the ways in which sci-entific and medical advice has changed maternalfunctions and come to be ‘‘the hallmark of con-temporary child-care practices.’’ At the sametime, connections are drawn between thegrowth of scientific motherhood and improvedchild health although Apple quite rightly

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acknowledges that it is difficult to claim scien-tific and medical advances as ‘‘the sole determi-nant of improved statistics and changes in childcare over the last 150 years.’’ Questions ofagency and why women embraced the princi-ples of scientific motherhood in particular waysat particular times (e.g., during the interwaryears) provide a recurrent theme. The expertdoctrines that dominated and then became sup-planted by ‘‘new’’ expertise are at times star-tling when read today. For example, the strictchild-care routines and schedules that character-ized the interwar years included advice fromone expert, John B. Watson, on maternal childrelations. ‘‘For Watson kissing was a sign ofemotion, which had to be dampened before itengulfed the child and mother. Children shouldbe at most kissed once a day’’ and a ‘‘respectfulhandshake’’ was to be much preferred (p. 63).Perhaps it is not surprising then that these rigidroutines eventually gave way to the more pro-gressive Spock years in the 1950s.

The book is an education and provides a care-fully researched and important record of theways in which childrearing has over the last 150years been shaped in relation to scientific andmedical practice and expert knowledge. Butduring my reading of the book, I craved a morecritical response to the developments that weredescribed. This may well be a matter of disci-plinary difference—I am a sociologist—but Iwanted to repeatedly challenge aspects of expertknowledge put before us and the fact that so-called ‘‘expert’’ knowledge can sometimes turn

out to have been erroneous (an example beingin relation to advice about babies and sleepingpositions, p. 165). In the final chapter, it is con-cluded that the relationship between mothersand experts has now moved to a more equal and‘‘modern partnership of mother and physician,’’and it is clearly demonstrated that there hasbeen a change in the tone of advice now pro-vided in relation to childrearing. But for me,there was no danger that this might lead me to‘‘romanticize’’ this modern partnership thatApple urges us against. Rather I wanted toproblematize the complex dimensions of thisapparent partnership. Indeed, this is somethingthat Apple had alluded too in earlier chapterswhere for example she notes that ‘‘women’srelationship with scientific motherhood is con-tingent on a multiplicity of factors and can beviewed from a range of perspectives’’ (p. 89). Iwanted to hear more about the different (andsometimes shared) circumstances in whichwomen mother, shaped by issues of power andpowerlessness related to ‘‘race’’ and class andthe scientific and other discourses which patternmaternal experiences and women’s lives moregenerally. But I also appreciate that this wasprobably not what Apple set out to do. Finally,in the conclusions, Apple calls for a radicalchange to the U.S. health care system and withthis I feel in complete agreement with theauthor.

TINA MILLER

Oxford Brookes University

Book Reviews 1369