Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers
Some Questions for Discussion:
1) The title of the book, Riding Shotgun, comes from the opening scene in Morgan Grayce Willow's
essay "Riding Shotgun for Stanley Home Products." How is this image of the mother and daughter
in the car a metaphor for the relationship between mothers and daughters?
2) Both Heid Erdrich and Sandra Benitez use photos as a trigger for telling their stories. What role
do photographs play in the book?
3) Many of the mothers struggled with the constraints placed on women by their families and
communities. How did the mothers deal with the limitations? What did cultural expectations
about gender affect the mothers' lives?
4) Place as a mother is a theme that runs through essays such as "My Mother is a Garden," "When
We Were In the Projects," and "Motherfood." In these essays, how does sense of place and
belonging define these mothers?
5) Barrie Jean Borich uses coffee to describe the difference between her mother and herself? How
do the other authors approach their mother/daughter differences?
6) Several of the authors--Morgan Grayce Willow, Denise Low, Jonis Agee, Susan Steger Welsh,
and Jan Zita Grover-- write about their mother's deaths. How does the death of the mother affect
the daughter? What commonalities do you see in these essays?
7) "Grown Folk's Business," "Your Mother," and "Aftereffects" describe the difficulties of single
parenting. What are the effects of having only one parent on these daughters? How does it affect
their relationships when the daughters reach adulthood?
8) Diane Glancy, Heid Erdrich, Susan Power, and Denise Low write about their heritage as Native
Americans. How does the culture of their various tribes change their perspective on their mothers?
9) Heid Erdrich, Faith Sullivan, and Sun Yung Shin write about having multiple mothers. How
do they each define "mother"? How is this similar or different from your own definition?
10) "Riding Shotgun for Stanley Home Products" and "Enough" describe two mothers dealing with
their daughter's lesbianism. How to these two mothers react to their daughters? How does this
affect their daughter's lives?
11) "Grown Folks' Business," "Foreign Labor: Will Be Your Child/Worker," and "Dakota
Woman" examine the intersection of race and class. How does their racial heritage affect their
mother's economic situations? How then does this change the daughter's view of the mother?
12) How is the anthology like a quilt or a mosaic? What kind of picture of the the lives of women
in the 20th century does the book create? What is the picture that emerges of the 20th century
mother?