Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman

Ayelet Waldman was a highly driven, successful defense attorney, married to a full-time novelist, when she left her job to become a full-time mom to her first child, Sophie. Fifteen years later, she is writing about her experiences with marriage and motherhood. Bad Mother was not what I expected. I checked it out expecting a memoir, and while revelations about the author's life run throughout the book, it's actually a group of loosely connected essays. They explore marital roles, breast-feeding, maternal guilt, and other topics that are familiar to many of us.

I am not sure Waldman represents the "typical" mom, as she is clearly highly educated and upper middle class. As she was expressing mild guilt over hiring maids to help with housework, I was thinking about the years my husband and I couldn't afford heating fuel. :-) However her essays are beautifully articulate, a bit edgy, and often laugh-out-loud funny. As a mom, I could relate closely to most of what she had to say; at times, reading these essays was like chatting with a friend.

The first topic she discussed was the unrealistic expectations and judgments we mothers put on ourselves and each other.

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Being a Good Father is a reasonable, attainable goal; you need only be present and supportive. Being a Good Mother, as defined by mothers themselves, is impossible. When asked for an example of a Good Mother, as defined by mothers themselves, the women I polled came up with June Cleaver and Marmee, from Little Women. Both of whom are by necessity, not coincidence, fictional characters. The good Mother does not exist, she never existed, not even in those halcyon bygone days to which the arbiters of maternal conduct never tire of harking back. If the producers of Leave it to Beaver had really wanted to give us an accurate depiction of late 1950s and early-1960s motherhood, June would have had a lipstick-stained cigarette clamped between her teeth, a gin and tonic in her hand, and a copy of Peyton Place on her nightstand. But still, this creature of fantasy is whom the mothers in my sample measured themselves against, and their failure to live up to her made her feel like Bad Mothers. It's as if the swimmer Tracy Caulkins, winner of three Olympic gold medals, setter of five world records, were to beat herself up for being slower than the Little Mermaid. (p. 11)

Other topics explored:

• Some parents are incredibly dogmatic about parenting philosophy, and this often seems to pop up in relation to attachment parenting discussions. Despite some of the rhetoric I've seen on the interwebs, there's no solid evidence that my kids will grow up to be serial killers because I didn't wear them in a sling for the first nine months, sleep with them, or breastfeed until they were in graduate school. I appreciated that Waldman was on the same wavelength. ;-)
• Roles partners adopt in a marriage, whether they be traditional, egalitarian, or mixed. While Waldman considers herself a feminist, she never changes a light bulb. :-)
• Keeping intimacy and passion alive after marriage and children.
• Her experiences with seeking parenting support on the internet.
• Teenage sexuality, her own sexually adventurous youth, and how she talks to her kids about physical intimacy.
• The burdens of homework.
• That unrequited longing for another baby, that just won't quite die.

She also explored parents' inflated hopes and expectations for their kids' development. Her family lives in Berkley, in the heart of an academic community, and intellectual achievement is clearly important to her. But she has learned to leaven this with realism and allowing herself to live in the moment. I liked this passage:

When Rosie was little, she was a slow talker ... She would sit on the floor, her fat legs stretched out in front of her, as I built and rebuilt a tower of blocks, , laughing each time I toppled it over. I was so busy saying, "Rosie can you say 'boom'? Say 'boom' for Mommy," that I barely registered her full-body smile, the way every inch of her, from her cornflower blue eyes to the pink tips of her toes, wriggled as she grinned at the tower's collapse. The most toxic thing parents can do is allow their delight and pride in their children to be spoiled by disappointment, by frustration, when the children fail to live up to expectations formed before they were even born, expectations that have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the parents' own egos. (pp. 205-206)

There were several things that touched me deeply. I connected with Waldman's account of her son's diagnosis with ADHD and coming to terms with the unexpected twists presented by a child's learning differences. I was also moved by her disclosure that she's bipolar and struggled with the decision to use medication during pregnancy. I went through this too. I had to make a choice, with each of my last two pregnancies, whether to use medication for anxiety and depression. Despite my severe history with my mood disorder, which runs in my family, and although increasing medical evidence indicates that SSRI use during pregnancy and nursing is safe, this was very difficult.

I also related to Waldman's fear that her children would inherit her illness. She wrote about constantly gauging her kids' emotions and reactions, looking for signs of bipolar disorder. She also described the stress her illness puts on her children. This almost made me cry.

I recommend this book if you enjoy essays and memoirs and motherhood is a topic close to your heart. I also think it would be a great book club pick. There is enough fodder for discussion here to keep you up well into the night.  

Other Reviews: The Book Lady's Blog; A Good Stopping Point 


Rating: 3.5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me