Anecdotes of mothers, daughters> Author collects essays

When Christina Baker Kline’s first son was born, she felt “as if I had been granted entrance into a private `Mothers Only’ club of people just like me — and, at the same time, that I had never been more alone in my life.”

That feeling of emotional isolation Kline wanted to address when she and her editor conceived the book “Child of Mine” ($21.95 Hyperion) two years ago. The book, released this week, is a collection of 30 essays by women writers about their pregnancies, deliveries and struggles during the first year of their first child’s life.

Kline, 33, is the oldest child of William and Christina Baker of Bangor. Raised in Bangor, Kline and her mother, a professor at University College and a representative to the Legislature from Bangor, last year published “The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk About Living Feminism.” Last week, the paperback edition was recommended by The New York Times Book Review.

“Having a baby can be terrifying and isolating, especially as extended families living in the same town become a thing of the past,” Kline wrote in the introduction to her new book. “`Child of Mine’ is about reconstructing that community, with all its wisdom, compassion and support, for new mothers today.”

Essays by well-known writers such as Susan Cheever and Naomi Wolf appear alongside those by authors not recognized outside literary circles. “The narratives comprise a diverse array of voices — enriching and contradicting and echoing each other, and offering different perspectives on the same issues,” the editor writes in her introduction.

Baker said she enjoyed “reliving those first years of my own motherhood” in reading her daughter’s book. “I have to say it was much more satisfying to read it as a grandmother,” she added with a laugh.

Not that daughters ever stray too far, either in time, distance or memory.

Kline said in her introduction that her mother’s “well-intentioned worrying stirs up anxieties that keep me awake at night. … When, at four months, my son began rejecting my breast in favor of the bottle, my mother, a breast-feeding revolutionary from the sixties, refused to condone the possibility that I might wean him.

“She believed that my baby would be stunted for life, disengaged and detached, without this vital connection. I tried for weeks to make it work, prolonging the agony for myself and for my baby because I wanted to appease my mother …”

Baker claimed she never gave Christina advice about breast feeding, but offered it to Cynthia, her second daughter, whose oldest son is four days older than her sister’s.

“I remember saying something like that to Cynthia,” Baker confessed. “I bet what happened is, I said it to her, then she called her sister and said, `Guess what Mom told me this time?’ And, in that indirect way, Christina experienced my advice as disapproval.”

Speaking from her Manhattan apartment, Kline said it did not matter who actually said what to whom, but that such incidents were the impetus for doing the book.

“What matters is that I got this feeling of disapproval from my mother,” she said. “New mothers are so vulnerable to what other people think. Sometimes, it feels like you are under this constant barrage of criticism. Judgment is coming at you from every direction, while you face this monumental task of mothering for the first time.”

Kline’s first child, Hayden, is now 2 1/2 years old. Her second son, William, just celebrated his first birthday. “Child of Mine” is dedicated to them.

“I think what’s missing now is the fear of the unknown,” she observed, reflecting on motherhood the second time around. “I knew what to expect. I knew what the routine would be. I’m not questioning myself or what others think of me as much. And everything, from the pregnancy to the delivery to breast feeding, has been easier the second time.”

Kline, who is finishing a novel set in Bangor, plans to edit a second book about parenting young children, ages 2 through 10. She has found the two pursuits a good mix for her.

“The nonfiction has been a perfect match with young children in the house,” she said. “To write fiction these days, I have to leave the house. I go to coffee shops all over town to get something done. But the nonfiction I can do at night, after the kids are in bed, and it uses a different part of my brain than fiction writing does.

“I used to teach creative writing,” she said. “I find that editing is a very similar process. It also keeps me in contact with other writers. It’s not as solitary as fiction writing is.”

Kline will be in Bangor the first part of July to visit family and promote her book. Baker is looking forward to practicing her grandmothering skills after her first legislative session.