Baby Love (Hardcover)

by Rebecca Walker (Author)
Key Phrases: New York, Dalai Lama, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The author of Black, White and Jewish gives voice to the uncertainty of her generation in a powerful new memoir. In journal format, beginning with the day her pregnancy is confirmed and ending as she and her partner bring their son home, Walker tells of her physical and emotional journey toward motherhood, poignantly reflecting on the ambivalence that has delayed her dream of having a child for years. Like many 20- and 30-somethings, she was raised to view partnership and parenthood as the least empowering choices in an infinite array of options. This tension comes to the fore as Walker's mother, Alice Walker, opposes her decision to have a baby and challenges her account of their relationship in Black, White and Jewish. Alice ends their relationship and removes Rebecca from her will, and Rebecca endures a tumultuous pregnancy, estranged from her mother as she prepares to become one herself. Elusive health complications arise, and she hops from doctor to doctor, ever wary of Western medicine. Through a lengthy litany of decisions (midwife versus M.D., stroller versus "travel system"), she Googles her way to information overload. At the end of this nine-month mental tug-of-war, she emerges changed: a meat eater, a committed partner with a renewed faith in intimacy, a new woman plus-one. Walker's story is accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit and warmth. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Sara Sklaroff

Rebecca Walker comes to her ambivalence by birth. The biracial daughter of divorced parents, she spent her childhood moving between two households on opposite coasts -- and between two radically different ways of life. She is also a product of 1970s feminism, a member of "the first generation of women to grow up thinking of children as optional." Her mother, the novelist Alice Walker, has written of her own mixed feelings about having a child; now it is Rebecca's turn. Her new memoir is a thoughtful and amusing play-by-play of pregnancy and birth, investigating the difference between the theory surrounding motherhood and the scary, messy, snuggly practice of it.

She barely got beyond the theory phase. During her eight-year relationship with the musician Meshell Ndegeocello, the two women had asked a male friend to serve as birth father -- "the natural way, no turkey basters." They considered moving as a group to Europe, "where I could write and be cared for by the thriving holistic midwifery and healing network. I could learn French, and the baby could be bilingual, and we could live in one of those charming villages in Switzerland." The arrangement fell apart after a first failed try at conception.

But that's just backstory. The 30-something Walker who learns she is pregnant on page 1 of Baby Love is somewhat more grounded, no small thanks to her new partner, Glen, the baby's father, seemingly a model of well-adjusted, nurturing manhood. He rejects her "polytheistic fiesta" childbirth fantasy, in which "everyone I know and love will climb into the hot tub-cum-birthing pool with me," massaging her scalp with lavender oil and feeding her organic chocolate cake. But mostly she worries about the usual stuff: What kind of hospital? Amnio or no? And can they even afford a kid? Consulting an array of health professionals (homeopath, Tibetan doctor, birth doula, et al.), she decries the medicalization of pregnancy and society's lack of support for pregnant women but delights in buying haute maternity wear. Ultimately, the actual birth brings her further down to Earth: "I retract my judgment of every woman who has had or will have a scheduled C-section," she declares. Yes, the pain is that bad.

Baby Love never mentions Alice Walker by name, and some readers may not infer the connection. Regardless, Rebecca's mother does not come off well. For years, she kept a sign over her desk comparing her young daughter to the obstacles faced by great women writers -- Virginia Woolf's madness, Zora Neale Hurston's poverty and ill health. "You have Rebecca," the sign reminded her, "who is much more delightful and less distracting than any of the calamities above." Walker had the right to say that (she concludes one important essay by quoting that sign in full), but for her daughter, there were consequences to being considered a "calamity," no matter how prettily it's put.

When Rebecca told her mother she was pregnant, Alice was hardly effusive. Later in the pregnancy, she suddenly threatened to denounce Rebecca in a letter to the online magazine Salon, which had recently quoted a passage from her memoir (Black White and Jewish) that criticized her parents. "She called me a liar, a thief . . . and a few other completely discrediting unmentionables," reports Rebecca. Alice backed down, but there were more confrontations via e-mail: "She writes that she has been my mother for thirty years and is no longer interested in the job."

By the time Rebecca's son was born, they were no longer in communication. Perhaps because of the book's journal format, which puts big and small events on an equal footing, these developments don't get the attention they deserve. Nor do we know for sure what Alice's side of the story is -- though to be fair, this isn't her book.

Rebecca has lived most of her life similarly to her mother, valuing personal independence over all else. Getting pregnant changed that. "Until you become a mother, you're a daughter," Rebecca writes. In her case, that also means a chance to be the parent she wishes she'd had. But lest she hold herself to too high a standard, it's worth considering that motherhood is, by nature, a bifurcating force: Childbirth threatens to split you literally in two, but good parenting does it emotionally, again and again. Ambivalence goes with the territory.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594489432
• ISBN-13: 978-1594489433
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #597,969 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering...Narcissism, April 5, 2007

By	cmcd (denver) - See all my reviews

What a stunning waste of twenty bucks. As a 36 year old woman contemplating motherhood I expected to find thoughtful musings and good company on the journey. Instead, a "dear diary" of jumbled confessions from an admittedly privileged but incredibly solipsistic narrator. Join her pity party as she boo-hoos her way through a hospital stay, a search for a physician/caregiver, the loss of her figure and sex appeal---never mind she indulges in more navel-gazing and food than any pregnant woman has a right to (explaining to her stepson, for example, that at 16 weeks there are just certain things she can't do, like climb stairs. Or focus on others. Or put her fork down--she gains 35 pounds in 20 weeks and claims her job is to sit around "rubbing her belly and glowing.") The few honest confessions and discussions are by far overshadowed by her need to indulge and reassure herself that she is a good and holy creature, that her exes and famous mother done her so horribly wrong, and that nothing on the planet--partners, careers, even longed-for adopted children--is so incredibly sublime worthy of exultation and love as giving birth to your "own" child. A supreme disappointment from a bright young scholar from whom I expected so much more.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ambivalent Review, August 5, 2007

By	J. Aragon "Feminist Educator" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this book in two sittings and have meant to write the review for several days now. I can't decide if it mostly narcissistice drivel or just occasionally dripping with narcissism. I enjoyed some parts of the book, but my copy is filled with comments penciled in the margins. I'm still processing the book.

I will say that some parts of this book would have made more sense if the reader read her previous book, _Black, White and Jewish_ where she tears into her mother and offers a memoir that will make you vacillate between feeling sorry for her and then wondering how in the hell she could be so damn egocentric.

That said, this book is like the book end to the previous book with the diatribe(s) against her famous mother. She is obviously working through her issues regarding too much freedom that she was given by her parents. What has troubled me between those two particular books (and I have read her other books/anthologies and many of her essays) is the way that she places full blame or most of the blame for her ambivalence and sense of not being loved on her mother.

Is it easier for her to attack her mother or does she just make it easier? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think that she is overly harsh or perhaps not harsh enough on her dad.

Granted, her mother has said some unbelievably cruel things to her. Her mother was trying to raise her w/ choice, independence, and in the process didn't give her enough attention. And, it appears that RW blames her ambivalence and failed relationships wholeheartedly on her mother. I could have done with less of the Alice Walker blaming and more of her musings.

What really troubled me w/ this book was the poor editing. The editor should have dealt with the tired cliches and woefully eyerolling colloquialisms that were nothing short of over the top. Many of her observations made me think: btdt as mother of two children, but also in terms of the myriad of other (better) written memoirs of motherhood or pregnancy.

I'll suggest this book to others, but w/ a caveat. What I'm really looking forward to is discussing the book with other feminist mothers. I'm RW's age and didn't have the ambivalence that she shares, well, and not the privileges of an Ivy League education and the vast world travelling! It's worth reading, but there are countless other books that are ten times better: anything by Ariel Gore, for instance.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If I could give this negative stars.... I would., August 11, 2007

By	S. Robinson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Baby Love is filled with annoying musing by Walker that disappointments, discourages, and enrages me. As a feminist who supports motherhood, I expected a writing of personal reflection that would be both individual and collective, that would inspire as well as deepen the conversation on motherhood, women, feminism, parenting, family dynamics, and other topics. Instead, Walker's writing focuses on her financial fears, her elusive search for resolution and peace with her mother (that carries such an adolescent bent that it is difficult to read without hurling the book across the room), and her very inward, selfish focus on motherhood. I can not condone such a privileged woman complaining of financial fears, nor can I condone her attempts to reinforce male privilege (evident within her interactions with her male partner). Even with her references to a ex-lover who is female, she lacks a consciousness of the multiplicity of the definition of family and of the privileges she inhabits within her heterosexual relationship. I wonder how her experience would be different if she was not only shopping, watching Sex and the City reruns, writing in her diary, eating, and being pregnant, but actually working without the luxury of a secure bank account or without the comfort of having several homes to habitat. She appears very adamant about being the victim in her life-- with her relationships, her own mind/depression, her mother, her father, her ex-lovers, her medical care (from a variety of health care providers), her difficulties. I long for a more mature perspective that incorporates part of the core of feminism which is to have an eye that sees the injustices within and beyond ourselves. I expected better writing, a less selfish and whiny perspective, and a more rewarding experience.