Between the title and the blurb, I was hopeful that this book would break some new ground in the ongoing debates around motherhood and child-rearing in America. That perhaps it would break up the tedium of the endless "mommy wars" by discussing some of the less-explored facets of the topic, or taking a unique perspective that had not been already heard in hundreds of variations, from the New York Times to parenting forums to the playground, in the last 15 years or so. In the past few years, especially, the flow of controversial books on the role of mothers and "parenting" has seemed relentless. Yet for all the creative ways publishers have found to market these books (You're Doing Parenting Wrong: Feminist Edition; You're Doing Parenting Wrong: How the French are Better than you; You're Doing Parenting Wrong: Fear the Chinese Mothers!) they all boil down to the same several arguments rehashed again and again. Did Valenti, best known as founder of the "third wave" feminist blog Feministing, find a new facet to explore, or best of all, a bold and better alternative path?
Sadly, the answer is no. Rather, this book reads as a kind of summary of all the ground that has been covered exhaustively by others. It is a brief, shallow book, with a timid thesis and many half-hearted supporting anecdotes. There is, of course, the usual belching up of statistics that one expects from any nonfiction book of this type anymore. But they do not fold into the body of the book in a meaningful way, but rather wash over the reader in a bland way like the reading of a stock report on NPR. The whole book seems rushed and tentative, and reads like an overly long blog post rather than a finished opus. The anecdotes are not written up in a way to hook the reader in. Many conclusions are reached by way of contested or unsupported "facts" and assumptions, Valenti does not "show her work" as you would expect in a typical nonfiction work. The whole thing is neither a sold well-researched work of nonfiction argumentation, nor a personal opinion or account that coheres as a story for its own sake. I was left wondering why she wrote the book, as she does not seem particularly informed nor particularly passionate about the topic. A curious fact is mentioned in one anecdote, that she had an editor for this book on motherhood while she was still pregnant with her first child. The book is then, perhaps a contractual obligation and material opportunity more than a labor of love or political conviction.
I should have known I was in for a disappointment even in the preface, as only a page or two into the book comes the first "Mad Men" reference, tossed out casually and offhand, a kind of dogwhistle letting us know that this book is by and for a very specific demographic. This is yet another volume about the neuroses of the chattering classes, dressed up as a work of general interest. This is a book calculated to sell itself, and then self-destruct in admitted irrelevance. Valenti got to write this book because she's Valenti, she was known to a publisher and an audience, and it was thought that a book on motherhood by her would be marketable to that niche. But the truth of the matter is, we did not need her book. What we need is a book by someone else--lots of someone elses, really--who is not part of this upper crust coastal elite set, mostly based in Manhattan, who dominate the discourse on parenthood and everything else in this country. I will give Valenti credit, at least, for nodding here and there in the book to the fact that the "debate" she is entering into is a rarefied and elitist one, that all too often columnists from the Times or the Post sit down to hash out "what's wrong with parenting" and "what should mothers do" and really they are only talking about the parenting of the economic top 10% and the mothers who are elite professionals with many options available to them. But we don't need or want to hear wealthy white women concede, with liberal guilt, that the discourse leaves out the rest of us, or to allow for our existence with a token nod and a bone thrown out in a passing paragraph or anecdote. We need to be included in the conversation, for the good of all. They can wring their hands that we need more daycare options, or work flexibility, or parental leave, they are very good at such hand-wringing. But has it ever yet changed a thing for the practical conditions of actual mothers outside their elite social circles?
In fact it comes across as condescending and a bit frustrating when Valenti nods at us, saying that the debate about staying at home versus working is different for women whose jobs are low-paying and not particularly "intellectually stimulating," and then proceeds to continue right on into that same hackneyed old "debate" and take a hackneyed side in it. Women should work, she says, as it's not good to be economically dependent on another. What of the fact that work at a living wage is increasingly not available? That student debt chokes the aspirations of the middle class? That working class women may have to leave their children not in a posh Mandarin immersion preschool, and not a not-optimal daycare, but one that is actually miserable and insufficient? All in order to work a miserable job that barely pays for daycare and electricity, as if to add insult to injury. She wrings her hands--the specialty of the chattering classes--about what would happen if "more and more" women became stay-at-home-moms, and how that would sabotage the plight of "women" (professional women) as a class. But there is no in-depth examination of this thought, and there is no in-depth exploration of alternatives. She tosses out some thoughts, and then sort of shrugs, and the book ends.
The only chapter that really brought anything new and of interest to the table was the one about imprisoning bad mothers. The anecdotes were interesting, and here Valenti may have actually found something to discuss that has not been beaten to death already. But alas it is like all the chapters in the work, a slim and fleeting blog post, and it is over before she has a chance to really look at any of the ideas in depth.
You will miss nothing important, no new contribution to the already nauseating and tiresome referendums on "how mothering should be done, seen, and felt about" if you skip this book. Which is really too bad.
