Women's Week: U. event looks at diversity of motherhood

When she was pregnant with her first child, Alice Perrault dreamed he was suffocating. She dreamed it more than once. People tried to reassure her, saying, "Don't be nervous, women have been having babies for centuries."

But then, six years ago, as she was in labor with Julius, Perrault's nightmare came true. In the birth canal, Julius spent too much time with too little oxygen, which caused cerebral palsy, she says. Today the little boy is quadriplegic, doesn't talk and has life-threatening seizures. Julius also gives his parents great joy.

In 2005, Perrault and her husband, Matthew Steubing, had a second child. Baby Cyrus came too early and died at birth.

Perrault's paintings of her experiences as a mother will be on display March 5 through 16 in the College of Architecture, part of the observances surrounding Women's Week at the University of Utah. The theme of Women's Week this year is Motherhood, and the organizers further define their goal with this quote from Ursual Le Guin, ""When we women offer our experiences as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change.""

Leo Leckie, executive assistant in the U.'s Office of Diversity, promises the week's events will give voice to mothers within a wide context. He mentions race, ethnicity, class, employment, singleness, lesbian/bisexual/gay parents and mothers who do their job within a religious context. Women who have chosen not to have children will be featured, also. There are two keynote speakers, Susan Douglas and Julianne Malveaux, both of whom have written about motherhood. Kathy Brooks, former director of the Women's Resource Center, will get the Linda K. Amos award for distinguished service to women at the U. of U.

The organizers of "Women's Week" chose Perrault's "Ride" as their poster art, in part because of the less-than-lighthearted expression on the face of the mother who is giving her son a piggy-back ride. The U's Taunya Dressler says the organizers responded to the ambiguity of the work.

Perrault wrote this explanation of the piece: "'You can't carry him around forever.' That's what people tell me, but all I have is 'forever.' Anything less is paralyzing. Forever to love him. Forever to lift him. Forever to believe that he embodies the shift that will tilt this world's cruel imbalances. This is our ride."

Perrault told the Deseret Morning News she sometimes wonders if her concerns about Julius are the same concerns a regular mother would have. "I don't have a regular child to compare to."