AustLit

'Child psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott wrote,

‘There is no such thing as a baby,’ meaning that if you set out to describe a baby, you will find you are describing a baby and someone. A baby cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of a relationship.

'In Mother & I, Ianto Ware frequently uses the title phrase as if the subjects are inseparable, even when another formulation might make for smoother prose, as if the three words, sufficiently repeated, might transform into a single pronoun acknowledging Ware and his mother, Dimity, as being at once entwined and distinct. Ware appears committed to this Winnicottian approach, providing a gentle redescription of motherhood as an evolving relation, a singular set of possibilities, rather than a reductive category. (Introduction)