Chronicles of Despair and Hope: Food Wars on the Frontline of Motherhood

In this paper I use first-person literary accounts of the hope and despair experienced by women when feeding infants and young children. In Soldier Sailor, Claire Kilroy offers a vivid depiction of attempts to get healthy and nutritious food into an evasive toddler. In her memoir, Making Babies: stumbling into motherhood, Anne Enright dedicates two whole pages to the word “haNang.” The word portrays endless crying of her breast-fed baby if she ate anything other than brown rice. These visceral d