Esch and Skeetah’s seven-year-old brother Junior is desperate to watch, and though they try to keep him away from the spectacle, their Daddy insists that Junior is old enough to see such things. It is her first litter, and the labor is difficult and gory. They’ve got to take care of their children, even if they don’t feel well.Fifteen-year-old Esch watches as her older brother Skeetah’s prize fighting dog, China, gives birth to a litter of puppies. This is another big part of motherhood, too. Even though she’s tired, China still feeds her puppies. If he sends the cow wormer to China, she gets sick. After the puppy dies, Esch’s brother decides to get a cow wormer, so that the other puppies and China won’t get sick.

When something terrible happens, mothers do not just stop and mourn they carry on and take care of their children as best they can. This shows Esch a large part of how motherhood is supposed to be. After Skeetah kills the puppy, China does not mourn the loss of the puppy. When one of the Chinese puppies gets sick, Esch’s brother, Skeetah, decides to kill the puppy so that none of the other puppies will get sick. When mothers get hurt, it’s not a big deal, because they have to take care of their injuries quickly, so that they can take care of their children.

This recollection said what motherhood is all about.

Esch talks about how she could feel the scar left from Daddy’s hook every time she held her mother’s hand. Calmly, she stitched her hand back up and went on with her day. Mama didn’t make a scene in front of her children. One flashback, in particular, Esch speaks of a time when they were fishing, and Dad caught his hook in Mama’s hand. Each flashback that Esch saw how much MamaMama loved her children. Esch seems to be concerned about her daughter. One of the most significant ways in which Motherhood is conveyed in Ward’s book Salvage the Bones is through the memories of Esch’s relationship with MamaMama. From experiences with them, she learned how to do all this. She went from not being able to recognize the baby’s reality inside her to finally be able to call herself a mom and equate herself with Mom and China. ‘China’s going to bark and call me Sister…… she’s going to know that I’m a mother.’ She says it shows readers how much Esch has grown throughout the book. She even calls herself a mom at the very end of the book. ‘My belly is as strong as a squash, for this baby is within me’ (Ward 57). Esch then starts growing up as a mother and finally accepting what’s in her. Esch is too afraid that it will become possible if she calls what is inside her a child. ‘What would be the babysitting in my belly like a water balloon makes me feel ready to burst’ (Ward 45). Esch’s cynical about Motherhood at the beginning of the story because she’s so paranoid that she can’t call a child what’s inside her.

Salvage the bones book