Mothers Of Sparta by Dawn Davies

 

This is the memoir of Dawn Davies' life.  It is written as a series of essays, each of which portrays some aspect of her life.  It starts with her first marriage and children, her post partum depression that went unrecognized and her divorce.  It follows on about how she found the courage to become an author, her eventual successful second marriage, her feelings as her children grow and leave home and in the title story, a chilling portrayal of her youngest son.

I can't remember reading anything that affected me as much as this essay.  Davies' youngest son was born with a cleft palate.  In his first few days in the NICU, he had to be revived several times.  He couldn't nurse or even take a bottle but had to be fed every two hours and he couldn't take in enough nutrients to offset the effort of taking them in.  When he was vaccinated, he ran a fever of one hundred and five for several days.  Any or all of these have left him with various diagnoses.  He has been named as autistic and that the impulse control part of his brain has been damaged.  That means he does whatever comes to him to do when it occurs to him to do it with no thought of consequences.  He has done all the warning signs of a psychopath; setting fires, harming animals and moving on to child pornography.  Davies's life means that she must have line of sight control on this man child (sixteen at the time of this book) every minute.  There have been no schools that will keep him on as he always breaks any rules and acts out in destructive ways.  This child is handsome and charming and considered a sociopath.  Davies has no idea what to do with him or what will happen to him in life.  It is a stunning portrayal of a mother who loves her damaged child but knows he could easily hurt others seriously at any time.  

Other essays are more lighthearted.  The one about their small terrier who was the bane of every small animal around him was interesting and comical.  Again, the family loved this terrier who managed to kill every hamster, rat, or bird the family adopted.  Davies' freely admits she was the cause of most of the disasters as her own ADHD means that she would often forget to implement the procedures the family put in place to control the dog.  It doesn't sound funny and wasn't, but her style of writing about it is.  Her essays about being a soccer mom hit home also and were full of humor about that lifestyle.

Dawn Davies came to writing later than many authors.  This book gained a lot of accolades when it was published and I know I will be recommending it to others for a long time as it really hit me hard.  Her ability to have such a difficult situation and her willingness to share it with others and to write about it is stunning.  Her lighthearted tone about other parts of her life is endearing.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers who enjoy memoirs and for struggling women everywhere.