Customer Reviews

Rockabye: From Wild to Child

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I bought Rebecca Woolf's "Rockabye: From Wild to Child", I was sold a misleading bill of goods. Like Neal Pollack's "Alternadad", Woolf's memoir was marketed as the story of a party-all-nighter's quest to transition to parenthood without losing her innate coolness. And like Pollack's memoir, "Rockabye" turned out to be so much more. It's a heartfelt exploration of a new parent's discovery of her heart and soul, awakened by the birth of her child, and how, in finding her own way to be that son's very best parent, she finds her true self. Woolf writes with unblinking honesty and a stunning gift for language. I've never been so happy to find that a book I'm reading is not the book I thought it was going to be.

I'm a longtime fan of Rebecca Woolf and her blogs: she has a unique perspective, a clever writing style, and doesn't hold anything back. This book is just as I'd imagined it could be--she never gets formal or pretentious just because her medium has changed. Her independent spirit and undeniable writing skill shine through whether she's talking about diapers or sex, marriage or rock shows.

Whether or not you're interested in parenting (after all, she wasn't when the journey started) this is just a propulsive read about life, love, and what it's like to be young and faced with something unexpected. Cliched but true: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll think. Heartfelt but subversive, this book is like sitting down with a great friend whose world has been turned upside down, dropping your guard, and letting it all hang out. Tuck it in your duck-print diaper bag or your Prada clutch. You'll be so glad you did...

I have been a loyal reader of Rebecca Woolf's since back in the days of the Pointy Toe Shoe Factory. This has been a journey that many of us have been riding in the Rebecca's VW carseat on the information superhighway for many years.
I think that there are many of us who have followed along through emotional last few years of her life feeling a bit voyeuristic. Other times I have felt like a passenger, a welcome one, as the dialogue she opens in her blog becomes so much about the reader, not the author.
Blogging about your life is so intimate for both the writer and the reader. It is impossible to not grow attached in this one way relationship. It is very similar for a memoir to feel this way.
I loved this book. So many moments of tears and laughter. Rebecca has an easy voice that is so welcoming. It reads very similarly to her blogs. Those blogs that have kept me checking in on regular day to day basis.
Some friends and I, who are loyal to Woolf's blogs, were worried that it would be too familiar; or worse, just verbatim from the blogosphere. I was relieved to say that isn't so.
For example, coming across the chapter "Things that are relative," It was from a completely different vantage point than when I first read about that time in her life. After reading the chapter, not in tears, but with a wide smile. I was taken back to the night when I sat alone in my office and read about Rebecca's Uncle Pete for the first time. It was dark. Everyone had gone home for the day. I sat there with tears streaming down my face and the blue light from my screen glistening on my face. It gradually grew to full on sobbing. Rebecca posted that in the www, I guess for relief, to get it out, to express those feelings in a tangible way, to share with strangers something so difficult and raw. I was sobbing first for her, but then for my own father, and my mother's father who were both gone from our lives too soon. I hadn't cried or frankly thought about either in a long time. I needed the invitation, from someone I trusted.
That night, her blogs, and especially this memoir, Rockabye, are all examples of how Rebecca has created a dialogue with her readers, that isn't just about her life. As memoirs go, that is trully unique.
A memoir that is less about the writer and more about all of us??? That's so... socialist? I don't know, maybe not, but I love this community that she has created by just having the balls to share.
I was swollen with pride when I got my copy from Amazon. I think many of us have grown from the ride in the passenger seat with Rebecca behind the wheel. At least I have. Thanks, Bec.

Due in part to a timely coincidence, Rebecca Woolf's beautiful love story touched me in a way I wasn't expecting: from her son Archer's perspective. I too am my mother's first born son, and like Archer, I was born a few weeks before my mom turned twenty-four. My mom and I also share the same sign.

Rockabye presents an intimate look at the maternal side of the youngmom-firstborn relationship. Through Rebecca's words, I began hearing -- and understanding -- what my own mom went through in our first few years together. From the pregnancy itself to my mom's relentless gobbling of my nose to my own vague memories of awkwardly forced socializing with other young mothers and toddlers in the neighborhood park, Rebecca has captured the essence of that unparalleled connection between mom and first born.

Archer Sage, the man, will be damn proud of Mom someday.

On her son Archer's first birthday, Rebecca Woolf writes him a letter that says, in part, "Thank you for choosing me to mother you." That sentence encapsulates so much of what this book is about, from Woolf's childhood as a misfit in Southern California, to becoming a mom and winding up back in the land she simultaneously loves and hates. From her unexpected pregnancy at age 23 to dealing with her son's delayed speech and the nonstop barrage of advice she's given, Woolf dissects her life pre- and post-baby, showing the through lines between each and how she is passing on her own naturally rebellious, independent nature to her son.

She laughs at herself when she finds herself wearing a pashmina while at a concert ("I might as well have tattooed MOM on my forehead"), and struggles to find herself, and her place in her family, both the one she's created and the one she grew up in, as well as in her friendship circles. Her relationship with her own mother changes, and in one of her most moving chapters, where she veers from calling her mother a "----ing b--ch!" to having a heart-to-heart with her and coming to understand her better.

She writes that "Maybe Archer will be the glue that holds us together, because sometimes love isn't enough," detailing her uncertainty about the permanence of her marriage but her faith that this young family she has created will survive. I'm not a mom (yet), so I can't speak to the accuracy or not of the motherhood experiences Woolf describes, but I can say that whether you've read her blog or not, you will find here an unflinching, sometimes funny, sometimes dark, always searching look at Woolf's life as it transforms and grows along with her child. There are times here where it's easy to forget that Woolf is only in her mid-twenties, and other times where that is eminently apparent, and both make one marvel at her ability to roll with the punches and not just expect the unexpected, but crave it. After all, this is a woman who wanted to name her child Colette, if she had a girl: "Promiscuous French free spirits with cocked pens and erotica in their oeuvre have always been my greatest heroes."

Woolf doesn't have all the answers but thankfully, she doesn't pretend to. This is an often stream-of-consciousness, in the moment, figure it out by the seat of her pants kind of memoir, the kind that invites you deeply into Woolf's world and will inspire you to keep reading as she documents her second pregnancy on her blog. Though choppy at times as she veers from her own childhood to her son's, Rockabye is still a powerful new voice that never backs down.

I wanted to like this book. Her blog is OK. A bit sappy for my taste. But as a fellow wild child turned mom I keep coming back, hopeful, but some how never fully satisfied. That is how I felt reading the book. Wild child? Really? I don't see it. Doing it her own way? By what? Refusing to listen to anyone, or read a book or parenting magazine? Please.
The writing is mediocre and full of its self. Not funny. Not original. It's sentimental drivel for the stroller brigade. A point that is driven home when you realize that 99% of the reviews are from fellow bloggers, or parenting websites.

Awesome, great fast read that is very easy to relate to. The truthful heart warming tale of a new mother and her choices and battles.

I have been a fan of Girl's Gone Child, Rebecca's blog, for quite some time. I jumped at the chance to read more when she published Rockabye, and I finished it in 3 days. Although I was not wild like Rebecca and my pregnancy was planned, I found parenthood to be such a force in life that it took me by surprise anyway.

Rebecca somehow captures what it's like to be a new parent, trying to remember who you were pre-child while living up to your own expectations of what it means to be a good parent. She shares her vulnerability with the reader, and at the same time projects her confident and uplifting attitude, encouraging all of us to take charge of our lives no matter how the changes came about.

I'm not a parent, but you don't have to be one to be touched and inspired by Rebecca's story. She's young (mid-20s, I believe, when this was written), but has an incredible grasp on what's important in life, and her parenting instincts are amazing. Remembrances of younger, wilder times are interspersed with the sort of poignant life lessons that you want to tear out and stick in a corner of your bedroom mirror, and she never slips into the saccharine, overly-earnest tone that's often found in the "momoir" section, or delves into fluff. I laughed, I cried, and I'm really glad I picked this one up. Great read.

Loved, loved, LOVED this book. This woman is bloody brilliant.

A friend recommended this book to me and boy did she have it spot on. This is almost exactly what happened to me. She inspired me in the book, in her blog, and made motherhood a lot less scary for me.

I could not recommend this book MORE! It's awesome.