Customer Reviews

Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother

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I SO wish I had found this book years ago. It is the freshest, most intelligent, and best-written book about what it's like to be new mother that I have ever read. Don't get the impression that this collection of essays is strictly for women who "did the career thing" before they had children. This is an honest and touching examination from some of the most articulate women around...of all ages and career levels. I have three sons (including 6-year-old twins) and although I was excited and felt "chosen" that I was blessed with such an honor, it was without question the scariest and most difficult thing I have ever done. Unfortunately there seems to be a whole culture of people who recoil at the gritty details of bearing and raising infants--you're supposed to have a positive attitude and a smile on your face at all times. Even the (sometimes) profound pain of labor has become a hackneyed Hollywood comedy staple, when you think about it. Sugar-coating the reality of what women go through physically and emotionally when they bear children is simply another form of the tremendous cultural pressure on women in this country. That this book enthralled me years after I had babies at home is an indication of how deep my feelings are to this day...as an independent person, I felt the loss of control over my life, our finances, and my dreams at my very core...even though pregnancy was a choice I had made. Reading this book was like finally being able to breathe after years of not being able to articulate what was happening to me. Every single essay in this book focuses on the extraordinary adventure motherhood is, and how it's an ongoing, joyful process that molds a mother in unexpected and wonderful ways. A great mood-lifter for anyone with a small infant at home. I can't give it enough of a recommendation.

While not intended for the purpose, this book might work better than a condom in reducing population growth. Reading Child of Mine is sure to give any woman pause before becoming pregnant, because the contributors hold nothing back in their accounts of their early experiences as mothers. Sleep deprivation, cracked nipples, near insanity -- it's all there. The more pleasant aspects of motherhood are depicted as well, but as any "experienced" parent will tell you, the first year in particular is the most grueling, the boot camp of parenting, if you will. Too often I felt that these writer-mothers' stories lacked perspective, some sort of retrospective comments to indicate that after the kid hits 18 months or so, things get much easier. But perhaps that's the point. In that first year or so we don't have perspective. We are trapped in a baby-care and -concern time warp from which there seems no immediate escape. The authors have followed editor Kline's directive to capture their first-year experiences, and the resulting collection of essays takes us from conception forward through the new-mother adventure. While mothers may find that no one of the scenarios exactly describes their own experience, collectively, they describe a sort of Everymom to whom we all can relate. Piece together this woman's breastfeeding experience, that woman's socioeconomic circumstances, another woman's level of attachment, and most moms will be able to find a mothering experience with which to identify. Child of Mine is a nice complement to the other baby-and-child nonfiction on the shelves. Those of us who are already mothers are in a little safer position to enjoy the book: The fact that we even have time to read the authors' essays is testament to the fact that parenting's maniacal pace has slowed down to a civil level. The sad fact is that the audience who might most benefit from the shared experiences in this book are new mothers, who are least likely to have time to read it. That leaves us with parents who are still expecting their children, by birth or adoption. Proceed with caution. You might think you know what to expect the first year, but those handbook-type books don't tell the whole story. Short of the actual parenting experience, Child of Mine provides the most helpful and valid overview of what you're in for your first year on the job.

This is an absolutely wonderful collection of first-time-mother experiences, and I've given this book as a gift to many of my new-mom friends. I ordered this as part of a batch of mommy books from Amazon without thinking too much (impulse buy), but it quickly became my favorite...so much so that I bought a few extra copies as loaners and gifts so I'd always have my own on hand. Much to my delight, I found an essay by Sarah Bird, my favorite writer, but almost every story is meaningful and relevant. This group of writers brings you into the community of mothers, across age, race, and income. The introduction is also worth reading, because it explains how first time mothers really hunger to find out whether their experiences are unique and isolating, or universal. We want to read other accounts not so much to benchmark ourselves but to reassure ourselves that the sometimes overwhelming and exhilarating feelings of first-time motherhood are normal and shared.

I am perhaps in the unusual situation that I read this book when I was pregnant with my first child and then again after I had her. When I was pregnant, my reaction was that many women in the book were extremely negative, ungrateful, and downright weird about the children they were blessed with. Then, lo and behold, after about a week with my newborn, as I cried buckets during fits of sleep-deprived postpartum depression, painfully tried to nurse with engorged breasts and wondered whether I was going insane, I remembered the book and checked it out of the library again. Reading it again was such a comfort. So many books ignore or gloss over those overwhelming, exhausting first few months with a newborn. This book tells it like it is from women who have not let time fade their memories. Yes, it does get better, and my daughter is a joy. But this book is highly recommended for any new mother who has difficulty adjusting to her new role. She needs to know she is not ! ! alone.

I read this book when my son was six months old. I wish I had found it sooner. Since then, I have given it to my closest new-mother/pregnant friends. They tell me they are passing it on as well. It is the only book I found that spoke to the emotions of the incredible first year of motherhood. I found what I had searched for with futility in the "how-tos." I saw a part of myself in each essay and took great comfort in the fact that I was not alone.

I was searching for a book to give a friend who was curious about motherhood and I read this all the way through before giving it to her. Her comment was,"I don't know if this makes it easier or harder to make the decision to have a child!" I agree wholeheartedly - as the mother of a 2 year old the stories in this book are a synchonicity of awe, wonder, exhaustion, frustration and many of the other emotions that occur during the first year of parenthood. I am ordering another copy for a friend who has a five year old and is due to have a baby in August. I think this will be a great refresher...

I really liked - and appreciated - this book. Some essays were more easily for me to identify with, but all were so very helpful during my first month or two of being a mother. I'd recommend buying it and reading during your last 2 months of pregnancy, if you can.

I received this book from a dear friend a few months after the birth of my daughter, and found it to be the best gift I had ever gotten! The voices of these women, with experiences like mine but far greater ability to put them on paper, were extraordinarily reassuring during the often-difficult transition to motherhood. I now give this to every new mom, and it's always greatly appreciated.

Hallelujah! After clearing the shelves of all the how-to, this-way and that way books on pregnancy and motherhood, THIS is the book that really satisfies those cravings -- not for pickles and chocolate, but for real experiences, to know whether all the worries and conjecture racing through a pregnant/adopting or new mother's brain are normal and okay? This collection of essays is funny, moody, educational and always compassionate, a tossed salad of writers and their experiences of adoption, pregnancy, childraising, breastfeeding -- you name it. The essays are organized chronologically from pre-baby to the first year. One comes away from the collection with knowledge and the sense of wonder each writer, even those struggling with difficulties, has for her child. The essays are deeply varied -- there's humorist Sarah Bird able to make 18 hours awake with a colicky baby be so completely absurd that you can only laugh, to adventurer/journalist Helen Winternitz struggling with her reluctance to settle down -- but unified by their thoughtfulness and compassion.

As every pregnant woman must, I started to have my doubts about myself as a mother. As much as I've always wanted children, and have seen myself as a good mother, the overwhelming sense of fear engulfed me in the start of my second trimester. The very thought of someone feeling about me and depending upon me the way I STILL feel and depend on my own mother was terrifying.

Enter Child of Mine. I devoured this book in about a day and a half, learning about motherhood, NEW motherhood, from women who had been there; women from backgrounds similar and opposite of mine. Yet, in all their stories, I found a sense of calm. Here was a set of stories that didn't candy-coat pregnancy and motherhood the way everyone around me was doing. (I think it's the rosy remembrances of pregnancy and motherhood!)

All in all, this was the right book at the right time, and I can't recommend it highly enough.