Customer Reviews

Life After Birth: What Even Your Friends Won't Tell You About Motherhood

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a first time mother at the age of 36, this book provided me with a great deal of comfort. Prior to having my first child, I practiced law for ten years. I assumed the stress associated with staying home to raise my child would pale in comparison to the stress associated with litigating. WRONG. Ms. Figes candidly discusses the fact that staying at home to raise a child is incredibly difficult physically and emotionally. There are so many contradictory feelings. Staying at home is both mind numbing (feed the baby, change the diaper, take a walk) and challenging (what should I do with the baby now?). Although you realize the importance of staying home to raise your child, you feel like you may not be the most ideal candidate to do so due to periodic feelings of resentment, boredom, and isolation. Life seems to be passing you by. You no longer have the time or energy to pursue your own interests. I took a cooking and photography class while pregnant, assuming I'd have plenty of time to do both once my child was born (they sleep all the time right?). WRONG AGAIN. Although there are opportunities to socialize with other mothers, they only want to discuss their children (not current events) and can be a bit competitive (you haven't signed little Johnny up for a preschool yet?). When you meet with other mothers, they seem intent on continuing the fairy tale myths associated with motherhood and are afraid to discuss any of the negative aspects for fear it will appear they do not love their child. This book let me know that I am not crazy and not completely incompetent. It acknowledges that being a mother can be an incredibly humbling experience. It also lets you know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and assures you that you have made the right decision. You can always go back to your career after providing your child with a secure beginning to life. I'm planning to read "Surrendering to Motherhood" by Iris Kranow next. It appears to have a similiar theme.

There are lots of books about how wonderful motherhood is, and there are lots of books that address the hard parts (Misconceptions, The Mask of Motherhood, etc.). Reading the first kind makes me feel crazy and inadequate. Reading the second kind makes me feel angry and used. THIS absolutely wonderful book told the whole truth, validated EVERY feeling I've ever had about the whole experience, and made me realize I'm normal, not crazy, and blessed beyond belief. A big thank you to this author. I've read many books about mothering. This one is by far the best.

I've never written a review on Amazon before but felt compelled to weigh in with the others who rated this book highly. I have 2 children, aged 2 and 4, and felt that this was the most validating account of what life is like with small children that I have ever read. Time and again, the author hits the nail directly on the head. Whether you're at home full time or working, the author sets forth the panoply of complicated emotions and challenges facing new and experienced mothers. At points I found myself reading things I didn't want to hear - but mostly about having children older than my own. Perhaps the anticipation of new motherhood - versus the validation sought by experienced mothers - reflects the negative reviews of others who read this book. From my experience, this is an honest account of what it is really like, and may not be great reading for someone who is pregnant. But for those women out there who are in midst of the extraordinary joys and deep frustrations of motherhood and are looking to hear from someone who really "gets it," this is well worth reading.

I am six months pregnant with my first child and looking for books that will help me set my expectations for the upcoming year. Most of the books I have found on the first year of life focus exclusively on the baby and assume that the mothering will just work itself out. For example, _Right From Birth_ is an excellent child rearing manual, but mentions very little about how to implement the great parenting ideas when one has not slept in three days.

_Life After Birth_ seemed to address the issues of mothering. But it appears to only apply to women with unsupportive partners and no extended family. Out of 1200 interviews, not one story talked about a husband who took over many of the regular household chores like my brother-in-law or a grandmother who volunteers to baby sit so that another friend can sleep in once a week. Occasionally an interviewee will say that she would not miss being a mother for anything, but Figes gives little or no reason why anyone would feel this way. In addition it is written in a rambling, disorganized style and is medically and psychologically inaccurate in several places. If I had just read _Life After Birth_ I would seriously doubt our decision to become parents.

My sister, a mother of an 18-month old, recommended _Operating Instructions_ by Annie Lamott as an antidote. Although a far more personal story rather than a pseudo-objective research analysis, it beautifully balances the horrors of colic and sleep deprivation with the relief of a supportive extended community and the joys of mothering. Also, Lamott is a luminous writer; her story made both my husband and me laugh out loud and ache painfully many times--sometimes at the same time. She doesn't have to say that she wouldn't miss being a mother for the world; one can feel the reasons with each page. I am grateful that my sister recommended it.

I know that this book has distressed some other readers, but I'm grateful Figes and Zimmerman wrote it. They're dead right when they say other books tend to be DIY manuals and paint a wildly optimistic picture of the physical recovery you should expect. There's a big difference between "feeling well enough to get up and back to a normal adult routine" and "feeling well", and medically-oriented books and people often fudge the two. It should come as no surprise that a physical change and strain as big as pregnancy and childbearing should take much more than the eight or twelve weeks' recovery we're told to expect. In a good part of nature, the mother, flower, what have you _dies_ after giving birth or laying eggs; why should we expect childbirth recovery to be like a sprained ankle or a broken bone?

Apart from the frankness on physical issues, I appreciate their indignation about how pregnant women are viewed in a society based on an uneasy near-equality and financial productivity. There doesn't seem to be any real role for us that recognizes we're simultaneously people and pregnant. And there's a strange embarrassment, even irritation, that seems to say, "Aren't you supposed to go be with the women in your family now (and stop reminding us that there's life beyond ordinary work and play)?" Well, for those of us who don't have many women in the family, don't have nearby family, or don't have supportive families, that's not helpful. So hooray for these two women, who've written a book about mother care, not just baby care.

(Oh -- and to readers who wonder why anyone would go through pregnancy knowing the horrors that might await: Some of us do it because it's the best way we know to give to someone else, when it's time to do that. And frankly, if you let yourself out occasionally, things that sound physically nightmarish in your teens can sound pretty surviveable and transient in your 20s or 30s. You also begin to understand you're not going to keep forever anyway.)

Figes' intolerant views towards at-home moms and her prescriptive approach seriously undermine her stated goal of supporting all new mothers. She describes at-home moms as `selfish' and damaging their children. Even as a non-mother whose mom worked outside the home, I was annoyed.

There is no need for this sort of divisive criticism. To make matters worse, her criticism is disguised as helpful, comforting advice. Nonetheless, parts of the book interested me.

Instead of this book, try Nina Barrett's "I Wish Someone Had Told Me: A Realistic Guide to Early Motherhood" (1997) for an even-handed approach to the same issues.

This book is not for those who are not already mothers, nor perhaps even for those who are brand new mothers. This book is for those who have been a mother for several years, perhaps have more than one child, and wonder why they have not yet recovered from the experience. As a stay-at-home mother of a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, I have struggled with depression and guilt every day since the first one was born. I have wondered why I continue to be a basket-case this long after the second birth. My range of emotions and frustration at myself and my children terrified me and distressed my husband. I thought that I was mentally unstable because I couldn't enjoy every aspect of motherhood. This book could not have helped me before I became a mother, because I never would have believed all that Kate Figes described. After 5 years of motherhood, however, I find myself on every page. I have found that my feelings and struggles are shared by many women, and that I don't have some dark secret shame. This book has been more helpful to me than the many self-help manuals on mothering and depression that I have read. I feel liberated from guilt and happier at my decisions to have children and be home with them. Although it may seem strange, I am more patient with myself and with my children because I no longer feel that I am an unhinged aberrant mother.

Excellent book about the reality of motherhood-especially for first time mothers. I identified with so many of the emotional aspects of this book, and felt quite validated in my emotions. When I started the book I was really struggling with my feelings about becoming a mother. By the end, I think a combination of this book and time helped me work through many of the confusing things I was feeling.

This was the most depressing, exaggerating, pessimistic view on motherhood I've ever seen. I think there are much better books out there that offer a realistic view on birth and motherhood - without comparing it to a "near fatal car accident" Keep looking!

I must say, I was rather disappointed with this book. Motherhood is definately hard work and there are some terrible, horrible, no-good days for mothers, to be sure.

But Kate Figes seems to have had a bad experience with motherhood, found others with a like experience, decided that mothers in generations past were all miserable, and then applied it to the rest of us. I disagree vehemently with her picture of motherhood, and particularly with her ideas about mothers who stay at home. According to Figes, children of previous generations were basically abandoned and neglected because women had to work (again, I disagree and think her view of history is a bit skewed), and somehow, therefore, it is *good* for mothers to put children in daycare and work, even if it's not financially necessary. One gets the idea from this book that all stay at home mothers are indolent sluggards, and are "indulging" in a "luxury". Well, let me tell you, with an income of $24K, we're certainly not exactly rolling in dough. To be a stay at home mom was a sacrificial choice made for the benefit our our children.

I have not found motherhood to be nearly as depressing as "Life after birth" would have it. In spite of the labor pains, the sore [...], the saggy body, the night wakings, all manner of bodily excretions, and the general craziness of life in this house, I am looking forward to being a mother many times over, for many years. I feel so sad that some women seem to be unable to get over the shock to self and selfishness that motherhood brings, and learn to enjoy it.