Jennifer Case, pictured above
By Aletta Simpson
In her new book, We Are Animals: Essays on the Nature and Politics of Motherhood, writer, mother of two, and professor Jennifer Case reviews the many struggles that are faced by women, most especially during pregnancy. The memoir takes place during her second pregnancy and the first year of her son’s life. She narrates her own story alongside the many political changes that occurred during that time surrounding women’s reproductive rights. She is open and honest in her writing about her personal experiences. She describes extremely relatable circumstances, especially for pregnant women and new mothers.
While reading Case’s work, I relate to her experiences personally as a working mother raising two young daughters and fearing for their future. Over a series of emails, I was lucky to have the opportunity to interview Jennifer Case, where we discussed some of those related topics.
Aletta Simpson: The book starts with your experiences during the days leading up to the birth of your daughter. You write about how high your blood pressure got, how you were on bed rest, and then about the birth itself. What was the most challenging part of your whole experience to write about? What kept you motivated to keep writing?
Jennifer Case: The first essay, “We Are Animals,” was actually quite enjoyable to write. I had been mulling over the threads for a while, sensing but not quite seeing the connections, so it was a pleasure to finally begin to untangle the knots on the page. That essay was also very different for me—much more embodied than my previous work—and I relished the sensation of stretching myself as a writer. Many of these essays, in fact, had a deep pleasure to them, like working out a challenging puzzle. I knew I was writing about something important—societally and for myself—and that fact was its own motivation.
The most difficult essay for me to work on was “To Hatch Intimacy from Despair,” largely because drafting and revising those scenes of prenatal/postpartum depression had a tendency to re-trigger those emotions. I had to take long breaks from that one.
AS: You write about the social media site for mothers, BabyCenter, and all the women who post about the struggles of learning how to care for themselves and their babies, “...we [pregnant women] searched for information on our own. Information about our bodies, about the babies we would need to take care of, babies that we, as ‘good mothers’ and ‘good patients,’ were somehow, inherently, expected to know so much about.” Were the other mothers’ experiences helpful to you? Or was it more about reading how others are right there with you, with the same struggles?
JC: BabyCenter, for me, was like any community you find that is centered around a shared experience or identity. I certainly came away from it with tips and ideas I could implement in my life, but I also gained a sense of connection and shared humanity: I wasn’t alone; others were experiencing and working through similar issues. I think it is the balance between those two things that can make such communities so meaningful.
AS: When you answered your friend about having a second child, you said, “I do not want to disappoint myself. But I also don’t know what might disappoint me in the future. Not having another child? Or having another and realizing how much I gave up in the process?” It brings the difficulties around the decision to have a second child to the forefront of the text. Later on, after you’d found out about your second pregnancy, your lack of enthusiasm reflects that. Do you think you would have felt different if you lived in a country with more support in place for families with young children?
JC: That’s a hard question. To some degree, absolutely yes. Much of the book is working to make visible our country’s lack of support for mothers and families with young children. Mothering would be much, much easier with more supportive birth practices, better parental leave (for all parties), onsite daycare options, and kinship communities that were able to step in and offer daily and/or emergency support. If raising children were a community initiative rather than an individual one, mothers wouldn’t carry such heavy burdens.
Many of my hesitations were less about wanting or not wanting a second child and more about the difficulty of being a mother in the society we have today. That said, would the decision have been easy with other kinds of support in place? I don’t know. Some decisions are going to be difficult no matter what, and I don’t know what a version of myself in a different context would have done. Even in an ideal society, pregnancy will still have biological costs. And not all women will want to become mothers—or mothers again.
AS: In February of 2024, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that a frozen embryo has the same rights as a child. A decision that lawmakers have since moved to revoke and provide immunity to IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics and providers. What are your thoughts on these laws and their impact on women’s rights as mothers?
JC: I can’t speak too specifically to the issue of frozen embryos, but I firmly, firmly believe a woman needs to have the right to make her own decision about her body. Women using IVF or considering an abortion are doing so for deeply personal and often deeply difficult and complex reasons. That is not the place for politicians. Pretending it is erases the woman.
Whenever this question comes up, I think about a study I came across while researching for the book. In the study, scholars wanted to know how capable laboring women were of making medical decisions in the moment—if women could reliably give or withhold consent to emergency interventions, or if they lost perspective and needed practitioners to make such calls. What the scholars discovered is that, when given support, mothers pretty much always made the choice that, in retrospect, medical professionals recognized as the “correct” decision (whether it meant an intervention or not). It’s amazing, really. Laboring mothers intuitively made the best choice for themselves and their infants.
I believe the same goes for abortions. If given support, women will make the “right” choice, whatever that is—the choice necessary for them, their health, and their unique situations.
When discussing women’s reproductive rights, I also think of the Turnaway Study, which shows that women who wanted but were prevented from having an abortion had much, much worse outcomes than women who sought and obtained an abortion (or women who wanted and had children). Women who were prevented from having an abortion had greater financial hardship, increased mental distress, and poorer physical health even five and ten years later. Women who were denied an abortion also had high rates of maternal depression, which can have a detrimental impact on the infant (even if the infant is adopted). So not supporting women in their ability—and right—to make these choices leads to significant, ongoing hardship for them and us as a society as a whole.
AS: You did a lot of research on pregnancy-related mental health conditions, such as prenatal and postpartum depression. Can you elaborate more on the personal and social impacts of these conditions on women?
JC: One point that I hope the book is making—and that professionals are increasingly drawing attention to—is the fact that maternal mental health is a reflection of the culture and society the woman is raising a child in, more than a reflection of the woman herself. Women parenting in stressful environments where they don’t receive adequate support are, quite frankly, going to show stress—which will often manifest as prenatal/postpartum anxiety or depression.
The impacts of that stress can be quite far-reaching. I’ve become very interested in the discussion of intergenerational trauma, which explores how traumatic stress can carry through generations. A mother parenting in a stressful environment may not be able to provide her child a secure attachment. That insecure attachment will affect that child’s adulthood and behavior, and they will often pass it on to their own children. We are beginning to realize and learn exactly how long-lasting the repercussions can be, and how much they impact our physical and mental well-being. If mothers received the support they needed, not only would their own lives be better off, but their children’s lives and adulthoods, and their children’s children’s lives and adulthoods, and thus society as a whole, would be better off, too. It’s all interconnected.
AS: The whole essay On Breast Pumps and Bovines is about the history of breast pumps and how they were designed by white men. I particularly loved this description: “The cow stands, submissive, and the celebrated cow milker hangs from her teats, looking a whole lot more like a mechanical parasite with an inescapable bite than an ingenious invention that will gently relieve her mammillary glands.” The breast pumps that are currently available are a by-product of an invention that was initially designed for milking cows. It may be handy, but it’s also degrading. How do you think the designs and advancements of breast pumps would be different if they had been created by women?
JC: I don’t know, but I wish I could see it! I expect something created by women would have centered around the woman’s comfort and sense of dignity from the start.
AS: What are your feelings about the number of endangered species you listed in your essay Animals on the Eve of Extinction?
JC: All of those animals come from the IUCN Red List, which identifies and assesses animals likely to become extinct in the near future. There are many, many more species at risk than I included in the essay, and I find it heartbreaking. It is one of those things I’m not sure we as a culture have the capacity to fully hold and understand and grieve. The loss is too immense. I have come to accept the reality of the situation: this is the world we are living in right now. But it still hits me sometimes, and I think it is important to open ourselves to that grief.
AS: Some creators on TikTok talk about replacing some of the middle-aged white men who are currently in political power with women of any age or race. What kind of legislative changes do you think we would experience if more women were making decisions?
JC: If more women and non-binary people were making decisions, I expect our laws would offer more nuance and understanding of the ways people navigate their reproductive choices. I don’t know any woman who hasn’t struggled in some way with reproductive justice (which includes the right to maintain bodily autonomy, to have children, to not have children, and to parent the children we have in safe environments), or who doesn’t understand the heart-clenching fear that can come with an unplanned pregnancy. I expect women (and non-binary) legislative representatives would know in their bones that these are not black-and-white issues.
That said, white women as a group don’t have a particularly good track record when it comes to challenging systemic inequities. And religion adds complexity. In other words, not all female representatives would do what I, myself, would want them to do. But I do think women have a deeper understanding of the complexity of pregnancy and the choices and decisions surrounding it, and that women as a whole would be far less likely to make the sweeping restrictions male politicians are currently putting in place. Even here in Arkansas, where abortion is currently totally banned, the majority of women believe restrictions should be loosened to at least make exceptions in the case of rape, incest, health conditions, and risks to the mother’s life.
AS: You wrote about the overwhelming Evangelical presence in Conway, Arkansas, where you were living during your second pregnancy. You also discuss what that was like for you, who grew up Catholic. Do you think living in such an Evangelical-focused area could put unnecessary emotional stress on expectant mothers who don’t practice a religion?
JC: It did for me, and I know it did for others like me. Anytime a dominant culture places expectations (and restrictions) on everyone, and doesn’t create an atmosphere where differences are going to be respected, the environment will be felt as stressful. And often unsafe. I know that queer parents here are very cautious about which practitioners they work with. And I know that when I was struggling the most with my own mental health, I never felt safe talking to my OBGYN, nurses, or doula about the circumstances of my pregnancy, since all were Evangelical. I was also nervous to approach a therapist, since so many of the therapists in this area practice through a Christian lens. Many probably would have been more understanding than I gave them credit for, but I feared judgment.
That said, a Baptist woman in a community dismissive of religion would likely fear judgment, too. It’s less about the belief system, and more about how tolerant and compassionate we can be toward each other’s experiences and perspectives.
Bio: Aletta Simpson is a student of creative writing at the State University of New York at Oswego. She has worked as an editorial staff member for the college's publications, The Great Lake Review, and Subnivean. She lives in Central New York with her husband and two daughters.