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120 reviews for:
Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
Ayelet Waldman
3.5 AVERAGE
120 reviews for:
Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
Ayelet Waldman
3.5 AVERAGE
She is a good writer. I chose to give this book a 1 star due to the fact that I did not want to read a bunch of paragraphs based on mostly Waldman's experiences. I thought this would be more of a blog with comments added type book, such as True Mom Confessions by Romi Lassally.
This was an interesting book. The author is an essayist and very open with discussing the intimate details of her life and the choices she has made. Her husband is author Michael Chabon so she mentions him a lot. The focus of the book is on how people are so much more likely to point fingers at people and label them as bad mothers and how almost impossible it is to be considered a good mother. This was a good read and she discusses some heartrending decisions, such as her choice to abort her third baby which was determined to have trisomy 13. It is rare to find someone so open and honest about their choices - even unpopular ones.
I enjoyed Waldman's frankness and candor, but I didn't find most of the essays as engaging or thoughtful as I'd hoped.
This book feels dated and the discussions on race, gender, and homosexuality are all somewhat cringeworthy. Kudos to her, however, for talking about her abortion. That took real courage. Overall though, I was not terribly impressed by this book.
Portions of this self-critical mother's ruminations on the challenges of parenting (some of which were fairly specific to raising an upper middle class family in the Bay Area) read as a bit plodding and overanalyzed to me. I shared enough of her experiences and had privately conducted similar enough thought experiments to nod in recognition while reading and appreciate her honesty, but yet I did not love this book. I think one problem was that it read a bit too much like a collection of essays first crafted for separate publication in magazines, etc. The 18 chapters are so crafted around the same core topics, themes and characters that several contain material (likely necessary to each as a stand alone piece for publication) that felt redundant and heavy handed when read in the context of the collection. As much as I recognized Ayelet Waldman as a woman it would be interesting to have lunch with to shoot the liberal self-doubting breeze, I was left with the impression that the book would have benefitted from one more edit with a sympathetic but fresh pen.
In the interest of disclosure, I recognize that the experience of reading this book was somewhat marred for me by having recently heard a fairly indepth interview with the author discussing the book, which covered similar ground. So the problem for me was not just repetition within the book, but also some repetition of material I had just heard her discuss in the interview.
In the interest of disclosure, I recognize that the experience of reading this book was somewhat marred for me by having recently heard a fairly indepth interview with the author discussing the book, which covered similar ground. So the problem for me was not just repetition within the book, but also some repetition of material I had just heard her discuss in the interview.
The author wrote about, admitted and poured her heart out about more than I would share with people. But thank goodness for people like her who know that there is one person she may help by writing about parts of her life and her experiences - good and bad, guilt ridden and full of pleasure....I say this about many books I love - this book is not for everyone, but it made me laugh and cry, feel anger, pain and true kinsmanship with “bad” moms out there.
Ayelet Waldman's essays are honest. They are usually brash, often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and sometimes simply TMI. I enjoyed them tremendously. She tells her reader -- and one can't help but keep thinking that she is also telling her children -- what seems like it must be everything about her marriage, from her (in)famous comment that she loves her husband more than her children, to tales about her past sexual promiscuity, to a truly gut-wrenching essay about having to decide whether to keep a baby with a genetic defect. Sometimes I don't agree with Waldman and her decisions, and sometimes I don't like her, but I respect her truthfulness and her talent as a writer. She also paints such a loving picture of her husband that it is hard for me to understand how anyone could begrudge her those feelings.
See more at http://hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com
See more at http://hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com
I heard Ayelet Waldman give a book talk at Sixth & I, which sadly ruined the first part of the book for me. It was a little too much deja vu. Only sad, really, because it was hilarious in person, and less funny written.
The rest of the book, however, was less funny, but stronger overall. An interesting viewpoint.
The rest of the book, however, was less funny, but stronger overall. An interesting viewpoint.
I enjoyed the individual chapters as essays, but the book as a whole was, well, sort-of repetetive. She made the point, early on, that mother's are very critical of one another. But I don't see any growth or changes in her over the course of the book and I don't see any suggestions for how we as a society improve that. In fact, all I see is critcism of the criticizers.
I really enjoyed a few of these essays, especially the earlier ones, but I found some of them boring, so overall this was just ok for me. I did like this bit...it's a good reminder to appreciate now: "Never again to feel the sandbag weight of a baby slung over my shoulder? Never again to hold miniature, translucent starfish fingers in my hand? Never again to match my breath to a baby's shallow wheeze?"