BAD MOTHER: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
Ayelet Waldman
Doubleday
Memoir
ISBN: 9780385527934
Who is a good mother? Is it a woman who stays home, always making herself available, cooking fresh meals and ensuring that the needs of her children come first? Or is it an ambitious woman, one who teaches through her example, professional pursuits and intellectual curiosities? Does a good mother combine these characteristics? Are these paradigms useful at all?
In her latest book, BAD MOTHER, Ayelet Waldman suggests that defining good mothers or good mothering may be beside the point: it is too slippery a topic, too nuanced and too emotionally fraught. Instead, in this poignant collection of 18 essays, she explores the idea of motherhood by turning the lens inward and sharing her personal parenting triumphs and failures. In the end, it seems good mothers are loving people who do their very best.
Waldman begins by looking at how easy it is to judge mothers. From celebrity mothers (the saints and the sinners) to criminal mothers, from high-powered career moms to very involved stay-at-home moms, American society judges and finds fault with them all. Waldman herself was villanized by the press and people across the country after infamously writing that she loved her husband more than her four children. In BAD MOTHER she explains herself (and stands by her statement), but also shares how it made her feel to be attacked for revealing her thoughts and emotions. The book goes on to detail her life as a mother, and readers are left with no doubt that she indeed loves her children.
In reading BAD MOTHER Waldman's comment is put in perspective: we get an intimate glimpse into her family dynamic. She wittily and honestly delves into her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Chabon, and lovingly discusses the differences in her four children. She ponders that fragile relationship between a wife and mother-in-law, and unpacks the relationship she has with her mother-in-law. She examines her bond with her own mother and touches upon the obligatory topic of preschool politics.
Waldman's book is most compelling and challenging when she bravely writes about two topics oft-ignored in the tomes of motherhood: the abortion she chose to have and her struggles with bi-polar disorder. These essays, especially the one about aborting her unborn child (dubbed “Rocketship”), may offend some readers. But, as Waldman makes abundantly clear, motherhood is full of moral, physical and emotional peril, and even good mothers cannot avoid it all. Some will undoubtedly judge Waldman for her decisions (and for her decision to write about them), but the open-hearted and open-minded will find a woman both strong and sensitive, a mother of fierce love and self-doubt, a book worth reading, and a description of the complexities of motherhood that will be familiar.
While it sometimes verges on self-indulgent, what autobiographical essays don't? Waldman's writing style is smooth and light-handed, even in the most painful passages. BAD MOTHER is often funny, though the subject is serious. Overall, this is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book sure to get tongues wagging in judgment and heads nodding in understanding.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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