Book recommendation to Mums

[ClaireinSE22]

A Life?s Work ? On Becoming a Mother, Rachel Cusk

is a series of wonderfully insightful, moving, frequently hilarious and ?oh so true' essays on the first year with a new baby; I want to recommend this book to other mums as I found myself stopping on every page and bugging my husband- ?listen to this, this is just how I feel?.? It?s not self-help or how-to (as if we need to read anymore of that kind of book!), but a psychological and philosophical account of the experience of motherhood. Here?s the author on Insomnia-

?For almost a year of nights I have gone to bed as one would go to bed knowing that the front door was wide open, that there was something on the stove, that the alarm clock was set to go off hourly until dawn??I have gone to bed like other people get up for work, alert, keyed up, and steeled for battle?

on ?Baby Literature?

?Spock?s babies are cheerful souls in spite of their temperatures, their constant gastro-enteritis and chronic excrescences of the skin?..In their anomic, tyrannical hearts they like to know who?s boss, for weakness drives them to enslave and dominate, to make fools of their parents.?

on Going Out-

?Because I am the baby?s home there is nowhere I can leave her, and soon I begin to look at those who walk around light and free and unencumbered as if they were members of a different species. When occasionally I do go out without her I feel exposed, like something that has lost its shell. The litany of the babies requirements continues regardless of the hour, season or location?she shrieks uncontrollably in quiet places, grows hungry where it is impossible for me to feed her, excretes where it is pristine: it is as if I myself have been returned to some primitive, shameful condition, being sick in expensive shops, crying on buses, while other people remain aloof and unpitying. My daughter emanates unprocessed human need where the world is at its most civilised; and while at first I am on the side of the world, which I have so recently left, and struggle to contain and suppress her, soon, like so many mothers, I come to see something inhuman in civilisation, something vain and deathly?

on Growing Up-

?I miss my daughter?s babyhood already. In her growing up I have watched the present become the past?.the storm of emotion, of the new, that accompanied her arrival is over now?.Motherhood sometimes seems to me like a sort of relay race, a journey whose purpose is to pass on the baton of life, all work and heat and hurray one minute and mere panting spectatorship the next?.I see my daughter hurrying away from me, hurtling towards her future, and in that sight I recognise my ending, my frontier, the boundary of my life.?

[helena handbasket]

Thanks for that, I've been meaning to get around to reading it and am now heading onto Amazon.

I'm intrigued by the negative response she had to that book; I recently read an interview of her and thought she was incredibly honest and accurate.

I have a friend who actually sometimes says: "Don't you just love being a mom? I haven't had a bad day yet." Um, sure.

I would much rather hear from the mother who loves her child but is in a daily struggle to get it right, like most of us I think. She summed up that first year of nights better than I've ever been able to.

[crystal7]

Loved this book too- especially the parts about sleep!

Another great one (which has been mentioned before on here I think?) is What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen

[citizenED]

I read "A Life's Work" too before we had kids. Thought it was insightful, honest and true. Never much discussed it with anyone because I felt it was too hard a message for some. I'm a dad by the way

[ClaireinSE22]

That's interesting Helena, I found the book by accident really - I didn't know what sort of critical response it received but it's not surprising in some ways....I think very few new mommies feel that they can be up front about the really tough stuff and who can blame us as you run the of risk being completely misunderstood - for example, when I complained to my mother that I felt like I was 'on a treadmill' she said "Well, I did warn you" as though I would have carried on taking the pill if only I had realised that having a baby might just result in some doing some extra washing and even perhaps knocking the pub on the head. I suppose R.C. doesn't spend much time on 'the positives' but I think that is well covered by almost everything else I ever read, watched, heard about babies! R.C. is a v. small voice in the wilderness.

Thanks for recommendation Crystal - will follow up! Need to keep grey matter vaguely ticking over....

CitizenEd, maybe it is a hard message....but seems incredible to me that anyone could imagine that something so completely live changing for both parents could possibly be without any problems....and we haven't even started on mum and dads' relationship!

[littleEDfamily]

The 'growing up' excerpt is really poignant....put something into words I couldn't articulate, but have felt more and more, especially after the cloud of babyhood exhaustion passes by and you start to reflect.

[mumof3girlies]

I remember first hearing Rachel Cusk nearly 9 years ago, when 'a life's work' was read on radio 4, I was about 3 months pregnant at the time, I clearly recall thinking 'she does moan a lot...' fast forward 6 months and I was a mother - I rushed to buy the book and loved and devoured it, and I too endlessly shared excerpts with my husband, friends and my own mother about the absolute truths of being a mum! One of my favourite bits was when she talks about having vaguely paranoid thoughts and that the baby is colluding with the health visitor to deprive her of sleep - is that correct, something along those lines anyway? sadly I lent my copy to one of my friends and now wish I hadn't, it is such a lovely read, and I think every child you have new resonances strike.