I didn't agree with all of her opinions, but her writing style is engaging. I'm a sucker for memoir, especially parenting essays (odd, since I'm not even sure if I want kids), so this was a worthwhile read. ( )

Novelist Ayelet Waldman writes of her experiences as a mother of four children, humorously detailing how every mother is sometimes a bad mother even while doing the best she can. ( )

Searingly honest in many places, hilarious in others. I wasn't prepared for all of Waldman's intimate confessions of her "crimes", and sometimes she does cross the line and reveal what feels like way too much information. (Though some of this easily could be my own prudishness.) But she writes eloquently and clearly, and for me there were enough light, ruefully funny anecdotes to balance out the darker moments. ( )

I started reading this book as part of my desire to read about motherhood. ugh, bad choice. It's not that Waldman is saying anything wrong--she's just so unbelievably irritating and smug while saying it that it ruins her point. She's like your crazy, annoying aunt who pushes you in a corner every Christmas and tells you waaaayyy too much information about her personal life. I think the only reason Ayelet was able to publish this book had to do with the controversy over her New York Times article where she said she loved her husband more than her children. Again, i didn't have any issue with her point, it's just that you have to wade through so much whining and unnecessary detail to get to it. She could have summed up this entire book with one well-constructed paragraph.

Waldman is married to Michael Chabon, one of my favorite writers, and I'm hoping she hasn't ruined him for me! ( )

i liked this book and i enjoyed reading about her life and her children (she and michael chabon have four kids). but at times it surprised me by veering off into a too-indulgent memoir. she makes some very excellent points, however, as she argues that we are all way too hard on mothers, who expect and are expected to be perfect. i liked her call to embrace and allow for "good enough" parenting. i thought she was really right on when she mentioned the berkeley parents network and how extremist and judgmental the attachment parenting people can be. when she was bottle-feeding her baby pumped breast milk, a stranger approached her to inform her that "breast is best". she points out that it seems to be one of the only approaches/philosophies that is characterized by proselytizing. (in other words, parents who use cribs, strollers, bottles, playpens, disposable diapers don't tend to have that attitude of superiority and try to convince others that their way is right.) and even though we co-slept and used a sling and i am all for attachment parenting, she is so right! for some reason, certain believers can take it too far, to the point where they believe other parents are doing it wrong. and that is representative of the larger problem waldman explores. as she says, if we can't accept & respect other parents, we should at least go back to the days where we kept our opinions about the personal lives of other people to ourselves. ( )