Bad Mother

March 16, 2009
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.

April 15, 2009
Waldman, author of the Mommy-Track mystery series, briefly served as the poster child for bad mothers after publishing an essay about how she loved her husband, Michael Chabon, more than their children. Her outspoken reputation is assured with this memoir, although fans and critics alike will be surprised by the vulnerability she exposes. Waldman writes of her shock at the vitriol sent in her direction from sources as varied as bloggers and Oprahs studio audience. She ponders the definition of a good mother, and wonders why the often-cited fictional examples of June Cleaver and Little Womens Marmee are widely accepted as role models. She faces her own perceived failures (a chapter on abortion is gut-wrenching) and ponders the complicated nature of contemporary motherhood and how casually women attack each other with little regard for or knowledge about their targets. While Waldmans biting humor is ever present, it is her concern for other conflicted mothers that stays with the reader. In all, an unexpectedly tender book in which Waldman candidly considers how difficult it is to be Mommy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)