Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace (Hardcover)

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Book Description
In the tradition of recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Perfect Madness comes a hilarious and controversial book that every woman will have an opinion about, written by America’s most outrageous writer.

In our mothers’ day there were good mothers, neglectful mothers, and occasionally great mothers.

Today we have only Bad Mothers.

If you work, you’re neglectful; if you stay home, you’re smothering. If you discipline, you’re buying them a spot on the shrink’s couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. If you buy organic, you’re spending their college fund; if you don’t, you’re risking all sorts of allergies and illnesses.

Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as “a bad mother”? Ayelet Waldman says it’s time for women to get over it and get on with it, in a book that is sure to spark the same level of controversy as her now legendary “Modern Love” piece, in which she confessed to loving her husband more than her children.

Covering topics as diverse as the hysteria of competitive parenting (Whose toddler can recite the planets in order from the sun?), the relentless pursuits of the Bad Mother police, balancing the work-family dynamic, and the bane of every mother’s existence (homework, that is), Bad Mother illuminates the anxieties that riddle motherhood today, while providing women with the encouragement they need to give themselves a break.

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A Q&A with Ayelet Waldman

Question: Why did you write this book?

Ayelet Waldman: Do you want the snarky answer or the real one?

Q:The real one...

AW: Because so many women I know are in real pain. They are so crippled by their guilt, by their unreasonable expectations, that they can’t even allow themselves to celebrate the true joys of being a mom. When your little girl curls up in bed with you and says, “Your hair always smells so good, Mama,” you should be able to melt with emotion without worrying about whether she’s reading at grade level.

Q: Do you think you’re a bad mother?

AW: Well, yes. Of course. I mean, that’s the whole problem. I feel like a bad mother, even when by all reasonable analysis I’m a perfectly fine mother. Hell, I went camping last month with the second grade. Camping. Me. A Jewish American Princess from New Jersey. Camping for me is staying in a Marriott, but I slept on the ground and ate toast burned over an open fire. And had fun.

Q: What is your definition of a good mother?

AW: As one of my interview subjects said, “A Good Mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer. She remembers to make playdates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games. And she is never too tired for sex.”

Q: Okay, so what do you consider the responsible, attainable ideal of a modern mother?

AW: One who loves her kids and does her level best not to damage them in any permanent way. A good mother doesn’t let herself be overcome by guilt when she screws up.

Q: How did your upbringing shape you as a mother?

AW: My mother drilled into me the importance of being a feminist, a woman with her own identity. But perhaps more important, she and my dad modeled a relationship that was entirely unequal... and didn’t work. I knew I wanted something different from what they had. So while I’ve made choices that made her feminist blood boil, I’ve also expected that my husband pull his share of the home and child labor. And that’s made all the difference.

Q: What advice would you give to mothers, today?

AW: Most important, learn to forgive yourself and the other mothers you know. Try to lay off the judgment. Just do your best and consider the rest a small donation on your part to therapists the world over. If we never messed up, what would they charge our children for?

Q: So what's the snarky answer to why you wrote Bad Mother?

AW: As a kind of f*** you to the insane Urban-Baby type moms who, after my New York Times piece on loving my husband more than my kids, sent me letters saying my children should be taken away from me and/or my husband would leave me for another woman. And especially to the woman on Oprah who leapt across the stage shouting, “Let me at her!” when I walked on that set. Yes, that really happened.

(Photo © Stephanie Rausser)

From Publishers Weekly

Having aroused the ire of righteous mothers with her confession to loving her husband more than her children, Waldman (Love and Other Impossible Pursuits) offers similar boldface opinions in 18 rather defensive essays. The mother of four, living in Berkeley and married for 15 years to an ideal partner who told her on their first date that he wanted to be a stay-at-home husband and father (he also happens to be novelist Michael Chabon), Waldman was a Jewish girl who grew up in 1970s suburban New Jersey, where her mother introduced her to Free to Be You and Me and instilled in her the importance of becoming a working mother. With her supportive husband to manage the domestic drudgery, Waldman did pursue a law career, until she quit to be with her growing family. As a champion of bad mothering, that is, dropping the metaphorical ball—making mistakes and forgiving yourself for it—Waldman writes in these well-fashioned essays how a mother's best intentions frequently go awry: she really meant to breastfeed, until one of her children was bottle-fed because of a palate abnormality; she denounced the playing of dodgeball in her children's school, out of her own memories of schoolyard humiliations; and she confesses to aborting a fetus who suffered a genetic defect. Her determinedly frank revelations are chatty and sure to delight the online groups she frequents. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385527934
• ISBN-13: 978-0385527934
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,692 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Stepmom's Review of a book on being a mom, May 1, 2009

By	Ravenskya "Princess of Horror" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

I don't have any of my own children - but I have "aquired" two little boys when I married my husband. Having never been around children I was in for a rude awakening when I discovered that mothering was not at ALL what it appeared to be.

"Bad Mother" is not a book I would have picked up on my own, however I am glad I read it. It's a well written book, and Waldman does have an excellent talent for honest, amusing essays on being a mother and a wife. I did find that many of the areas she touched on resonated in my heart. I was born long after the bra burning days that Waldman lived through and I am not Jewish, nor do I have a lucrative career as an attorney or author, and I don't live in an uber-liberal town filled with good schools. However she WAS able to tap into the side of me that feels like I'm failing as a mother figure to my boys.

Waldman talks about how women in the post-bra burning era have actually set themselves up to feel like failures. We want a career, we believe that we need to work, we also want to be excellent wives, and to be fantastic mothers of perfect children in our fabulously sparkling clean houses. We can't do it - well the vast majority of us can't, there just isn't the time or enough coffee in the world to get it all done, and so we pile the guilt on ourselves making us bitter and unable to appreciate the joys that we do have.

The book contains 18 essays on different aspects of the author's life. These are very honest and personal tales, many are funny, some are heartbreaking, some are thought provoking, but all are honest. This book is not a "how to" or even a vague guide. This book actually reads almost along the lines of a personal series of therapy sessions, as if the author is working through her own fears, faults and shortcomings. Since that is the case - if you share some of these fears this book can actually take a bit of the weight off of your shoulders in the knowledge that you aren't alone in it all.

She discusses the fears we have of losing ourselves in our motherhood - becoming "Tommy's Mom" or "John's Wife" rather then being known for our own contributions. The frustrations of giving up a career and the satisfaction that we would have gained from it. The boredom and maddening feelings that the transition from business woman to mommy can envoke, and the guilt we slather on ourselves for even thinking this way.

I loved the beginning of this book, and I probably would have rated it 4 stars if I had been able to get past my personal hangups of writing her off. I have a hard time feeling sorry for a woman debating on hiring a cleaning lady because of her "feminist" values, or complaining about snarky comments from other Berkley residents, or whining about her choice to give up her prestigious legal career to be a stay at home mom. Most moms don't have the option to hire a cleaning service, or live in Berkley, or even have the option of a legal career. Where I really started to shut off was at the ending of the book when her liberal leanings became the forfront of her writings. I'm registered as an independant and don't believe in either party - and I also don't like to be bashed over the head with party politics from either direction.

If you're not a liberal - you probably won't like this book. The last several essays become extremely liberally biased and some of the poking and prodding about the pros of a gay lifestyle and glory of interracial marriage became enough to make me gag (which is quite a feat considering that I don't have an issue with either.) I would also warn anyone who is extremely pro-life that this book does contain and essay about an abortion and her justification for her choice.

Still - even though I didn't agree with her in-your face political leanings at the end of the book - there were some very touching and eye opening moments that made this book worthy of the read.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing, July 26, 2009

By	P. Spiegel (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very disappointed by this book, which should be called "Bad Book" rather than "Bad Mother." Her premise, and first chapter, are good: that it's impossible to be a "good" mother in this society, with so many unattainable expectations placed on women. But the book veers off into nothing more than her own personal musings on her personal life, which is not that compelling.

Turns out she's not a bad mother at all. She's really a great mother with four wonderful kids, a great house, a great career, AND the perfect husband, who is a very successful and wealthy author. So, can I relate to her? No. Do I want to hear about her perfect sex life? No. Or her perfect husband? Not really.

I am a truly flawed mother who has a pretty rocky relationship with my teenage daughter, and with my boyfriend (and his kids). I don't have a perfect husband doing most of the cooking and cleaning (and really good wage-earning). I have a really flawed life that has little in common with Waldman's.

Waldman should subtitle her book: "Musings from an Incredibly Lucky, Really Great Mother who Also Has a Perfect Husband." That would be more truthful. She is neither "hilarious" nor "controversial," as the book jacket says. She is mundane, uninspired, and not a great writer. But she is lucky, and a fine mother.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting ..., April 23, 2009

By	Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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I am not sure whether to laugh or cry when I read this book. There are some controversial subjects in there that definitely raised my eyebrows and can only imagine what others might think of this book. It is a well-written book on 18 different topics, but mainly on the subject of motherhood. If you are a mother, you might be interested in this book especially if you've been carrying a load of guilt for anything you think you're not doing right. If you are tired of the guilt, then take a load off your feet, kick back and read this book. This book will have you laughing in spots, nodding in recognition and crying in other spots. No matter what you may think of some of the controversial subjects she brings up, you will recognize the warmth and appreciate her direct honesty for what it is worth. She is a mother but she is also human too.

I don't know which is my favorite chapter ... the one where she confesses she loves her husband more than her children (which I can relate to. After all, she married her husband, not her children!) or the heartbreaking subject of her abortion. You do not have to agree with every single word she writes but you will appreciate the courage she has in sharing her tribulations and trials as a mother. I don't understand how she would find infanthood tedious ... but that's just me. Those were my best years but then again, I was really tired from having twins making demands on me, that I didn't think too much about how tedious it was.

She also tends to go on and on sometimes about something and you just wish she would have a better editor (maybe she did, because my copy is the advance reader copy) and chop some of it down to make it more bearable and more readable. But I thoroughly enjoyed every single page that I've read ... she is someone I can relate to in this ardous journey called motherhood.

It comes out in early May ... just in time for Mother's Day. I would recommend this to all my friends who are mothers simply for the fact that this woman has gone through a lot of the issues we all face. She handles it with grace and wry humor along with direct honesty. It is definitely a new book on motherhood, right up there with the others. All moms can relate to this book!

4/23/09