Under Duress Women Caught in a Web of Discourses

In early 2001, a 12-month-old Edmonton baby clad only in a diaper and t-shirt wandered outside on a freezing winter night where the temperature was-23 degrees. She was found frozen to the bone two hours later and was rushed to hospital. She not only survived, but made a rapid recovery, much to the amazement of medical and lay observers. The baby, Erika Nordby, became a legend. The response to the case of Erika was dramatic. The entire country focused on her rescue and recovery. Almost immediately, however, a parallel story began to unfold: this one was about Erika's mother, Leyla, and specifically, about her mothering. The case was profiled in Saturday Night (Moher, 2001) in an article suggesting the real "miracle " was about to occur: for Erika to survive her social circumstances and grow up healthy. Leyla's mothering was suspect because she was single, Aboriginal and temporarily homeless. A mixture of events and factors emerged to fill out a picture of a mother who was, in general terms, less than perfect. However, the assumptions about her and her childwer