Customer Reviews

Mom's the Word: Silent No More

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When I first investigated E.M. Stoddard's "Mom's the Word: Silent No More," I suspected it was the sort of book that would appeal more to women than men. It's easy to understand why I thought so: there is a heavy emphasis on describing the trials and travails of finding a suitable nanny for the author's young son. Invoking images of "The Nanny Diaries" and other books that deal with similar themes, i.e. the tension that inevitably arises between a family and their hired help, doesn't really sound like the sort of book I would be interested in. I was wrong. Stoddard's book goes far beyond nannies run amok. "Mom's the Word" is actually a memoir. It's an examination of a difficult life lived to the fullest, a book that describes one woman's experiences growing up in a family with eight siblings, dealing with seven different nannies in about as many years, surviving a fat beagle, and going through the anguish of living and divorcing an alcoholic husband. Moreover, many of the events take place while Stoddard works a full-time job that requires her to travel around the globe. It should go without saying that this memoir covers a lot of ground.

The first part of the book concerns Stoddard's tumultuous upbringing in Boston, Massachusetts, her marriage, and her reemergence as a single working mother. How could her childhood and adolescence be anything but tumultuous with eight brothers and sisters, a worry wart for a mother, and a colorful father who drinks a lot while working as an international fish buyer? Sit back and watch the hijinks unfold! Seriously, though, the author deals with everything from watching bar fights rage in the streets outside the family apartment to pulling teenage pranks with a mischievous friend. Nothing too outrageous happens, which is surprising considering the huge size of the family, but it's obvious that this chaotic upbringing put a bit of steel into the author's backbone. She needs it when she marries her husband Patrick, a man who would go on to a very successful career in advertising before sinking beneath waves of alcohol. Stoddard goes into great detail about the acrimonious divorce proceedings and her efforts to raise their son by herself. It is at this point that the nannies start marching across the stage. Seven of them in less than seven years. It's also the point where the fat beagle comes to the fore.

For those of us not wealthy enough or desperate enough to have to bring total strangers into our house to help raise our kids, Stoddard's descriptions of her various encounters with nannies are a bit of a shock. Despite her best efforts to check the backgrounds of these young people, she had to deal with a few frightening incidents. There was the nanny who showed up prim, proper, and uptight only to turn into a raging estrogen hurricane by the end of her tenure. Then there was another girl who showed up ready for a neverending party. This gal favored illegal substances and liked to hang around with drug dealers. Fun! We see nannies both calm and well mannered (one likes to just kick back and read books) and unbelievably obtuse (one who doesn't grasp the fundamental dynamics of an automobile, to cite just one hilarious example). Fortunately for the author, her son keeps her going through the tough times. So does Briggs, the family beagle. His legendary adventures--more like misadventures--revolve around food. He likes to raid local restaurants, steal food from neighbors, and eat so much on Thanksgiving that he literally can't move for hours afterwards. You'll laugh and you'll cry with this book.

For the most part, many of the things we read in "Mom's the Word" aren't that unusual. Nearly everyone could tell funny pet stories, or talk about growing up in an odd family. Single mothers having to work just to keep the house together aren't that rare of a sight nowadays, either. And who among us haven't pulled a few adolescent pranks? Stoddard's book isn't a unique view into the modern family, but there are a few things inside this story worth mentioning that set this life story apart. For example, as I read the book I marveled at the amount of traveling E.M. Stoddard undertook, first with her husband and later as a single mother. She actually had the opportunity to live in Japan for several years, and her anecdotes about life in the Land of the Rising Sun are extremely interesting to read about. Later on she had the opportunity to travel to other parts of Asia, Europe, and just about every place in between. As someone whose idea of a big trip is a jaunt out to Eastern Colorado, I appreciated seeing foreign lands described in such vivid detail. I feel like I'm really missing out on life after reading "Mom's the Word".

So there you have it. E.M. Stoddard's book is one part family drama, one part nanny madness, one part travelogue, and one part fat beagle gone crazy. I think most readers could find something of interest within these pages. As an aside, I'm continually surprised by many of these vanity press books. You'll read a few and think, "Ehh. I could've better spent my time reading something worthwhile," and then pick up another title and find out you've discovered the proverbial diamond in the rough (Or is that a needle in a haystack?). "Mom's the Word" is one of the diamonds. It's a little rough around the edges, and it needs a little polishing here and there, but the end result is something worth beholding. I'm going to give the book five stars. It's amusing, serious, insightful, and full of the joy of simply living one's life to the fullest. I wish more books had this sort of zest!