Those of you who have followed my journey here this year will know the name Ayelet Waldman. You'll know how I wrote about her controversial essay in the New York Times that landed her on Oprah. You'll know how we corresponded and that she was generous enough to send me an advance copy of her new book, Bad Mother. You may even have seen me read from it in my film, The Lark.
Well Bad Mother is back on my radar. It hits shelves and virtual shopping carts May 5th, and I can't wait to start talking about it with all of you.
I pulled it off my own shelf and started reading it again. It's A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace. It's about how we talk about moms, with names like good mother and bad mother. It's about how when we describe a good father, the discourse is sparse. The archetypes few. But when we talk about good mothers, omigod do we have thoughts, and more importantly, names for what she should be.
It's about why that may be the case, and becomes increasingly more the case every day. It's about lots of interesting things like how we use spectacle and "bad moms" like Britney Spears and Andrea Yates to soothe our private fears of bad mothering.
It's about, mom-on-mom crime and how grown women are also guilty of playground bullying. It's about how flipping the paradigm and becoming an openly bad mom, a confessaholic one might say, isn't quite the answer, either. Though it's fun, and you've all seen me do it here and on Twitter often, and you KNOW how I love me some Bombeck, as Waldman says "there is no inherent nutritional value in the antidote to poison." God, I love this woman. One smart cookie.
Most importantly, it's about understanding that in the daily question of Am I a bad or a good mother? Is she a bad or a good mother?, we are wasting precious time looking inward, that could be spent watching our children, and just being curious about them.
This book will make you think about the way you think. And then guess what happens to all the names you've given yourself and all the selves you've become to different people at different times, and to all the names they've given you?
They . . . fall . . . away.
And you can just stand there, and say what you think. Ophelia wades out of the water. The fractured girl collects her parts—the daughter, the sister, the mother, the wife, the reader, the writer, the good mommy on the playground, the bad or sad mommy alone in her home. She gathers them all together, finds where they overlap, and says, "Yes, I like HER. Whatever her name is." And furthermore, I want my children to meet HER.
And I want to talk about that with all of you. So please, say something. Ayelet Waldman is saying something. ModernSingleMomma is saying something. Ria Sharon is saying something. Suzanne Tucker, ZenMommy, is saying something. Leigh Caraccioli, Fleurdeleigh, is saying something. Many of you are saying something on Twitter, by adding #badmother to your thoughts. You can join any of us on Twitter, by finding our Twitter links on our sites. Please keep talking.
I want to hear you say something here, too. But no name calling. Okay?
And if you want to hear us say something live, with Ayelet Waldman on Monday, May 11th, Noon EST, pop in here and watch.
Sign up below and we'll remind you that day, and send you the first chapter of Bad Mother immediately, so you can join the conversation. I can't wait to hear.
5 comments:
No more "soul-crushingly boring" mommy conversations. I'm praising Ayelet Waldman and you for that and so much more. Thank you MissIve for starting all of us talking and for engaging us all in #badmother....Can't wait for next Monday.
Apologies for a comment not related to the content of your post (I'm not a mom! But I fully support the shedding of guilt.)
In any case, the writing-with-eyes-closed startled me, because I have been doing that! What a joke, though-- I even incorporated a pillow, so I have my head down, eyes closed, and fingers clicking away. It helps loosen me up . . . until I start to snooze!
Wow.. that first chapter was a read and a half. Having ridden a bunch of conflicting thoughts and ideas since dipping in and out of it during (tsk tsk) 'kids bedtime'last night this is what I've come up with.
Now, I'm sticking my neck out ego-at-the-door here cos I'm going to sound like I knit teabags on my spare time (those who smile like it's not-so-unlikely wont be reading your blog - but they're 'out there')
It's going to take some big-picture thinking, so bear with me please... the overwhelming sense I get with this whole issue is that as a race we're behaving like petulant kids who've just been told the party is well and truly over and it is SO time to go home and rest. And we're being told that by Gaia/Earth or whatever you want to call Her. The Big Mama.
She's the fundamental bottom line mama (think ashes to ashes..) and she's pissed at the tantrums we're throwing with our oil addictions and our trash mountains and you get my drift....
And we (collectively) are behaving just like every modern day kid who wants their own way... BAD MAMA !!! I don't love you !! You're a BAD mother !
I mean does anyone even remember thinking anything close when our own mother's put limits on our desires? Ok, I'm Scottish, you don't really argue with a Scottish mother.. but seriously... there was never one single moment when it occurred to me to level at her 'bad mother'. Yet my own kids like to wind me up with that whenever they can, so to me it's clearly accessible in the collective psyche.
We live in an olive grove without a tv so their access to collective opinion doesn't come directly through the regular channels (yes - they knit tea bags too! - just kidding, they do the usual stuff just without the tv).
Lame and half-baked as this probly sounds to all non-teabag-knitters, I think we just picked the wrong moment to be mothers if we don't want to be fighting this particular battle. Sooner or later the human race will hit adolescence, and then maybe even adulthood, by which time I don't expect mothers to be getting the same bad press. Question is, will any of us still be here??!
Loving this topic and can't wait for next week...
(btw Jen/Lisa .. I do the eyes-closed thing too. Total winner!)
I don't think time looking inward is ever wasted.
MissIve, it's it ok to say "i love you?" hope so.
i'm sooo glad we are having this CHAT!!! bottom line for me? how can we love anyone else if we can't love ourself?
loving one's self requires KNOWING one's self. playing june clever when you are NOT does not make anyone happy. nor does the reverse...power job mom when you'd rather be at home.
we're all different. does that surprise anyone? we parent differently, think differently...have different ambitions, different opinions, different gifts and different challenges. GOOD mother, BAD mother? who can say? for me it's about loving myself, forgiving myself...and allowing that love to flow..to my kids...my hubby...my peeps ;p
guess what i'm rambling on about here is acceptance...of self...of our kids...of each other...of what "is"...even when we'd have it NOT BE SO!#@! acceptance a real gift we can ALL reach through the collective joys and trials of motherhood...a gift we can all get by reading and TALKING @ this book. so glad to be one of the fab fem 5 talking w ayelet. see/stream ya'll on monday. ;p
Suzanne aka ZenMommy
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