Bad Mother

A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace

By: Ayelet Waldman

Narrated by: Mia Barron

Best-selling author Ayelet Waldman delivers a humorous, encouraging look at the nearly impossible - and often thankless! - job of mothering. Filled with humor and deliciously outrageous observations on the world'smost difficult profession, Bad Mother is a godsend for anyone who's ever felt maternally challenged.

As every pregnant woman knows, motherhood is a nonstop pleasure cruise filled with warmth, personal fulfillment, and consistent joy - or at least that's what women are told before they give birth and the real truth of mothering asserts itself. As seasoned moms will attest, mothering is difficult, stressful, and the biggest challenge a woman will ever face.

With rare insight, Waldman addresses the overwhelming task of motherhood - and encourages women to realize they may be doing a much better job than they think.

©2009 Ayelet Waldman (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Waldman writes in these well-fashioned essays how a mother's best intentions frequently go awry.... [her] frank revelations are chatty and sure to delight." (Publishers Weekly)
"While Waldman's 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." (Booklist)

Not what I expected, but Interesting

What did you like best about Bad Mother? What did you like least?

When I bought Bad Mother, I was looking for humor - humor which made me see that all moms are as flawed as me. Not quite what I got. Waldman started off discussing what it means to be a good mother and a good father and it is clear how raw of a deal we moms have. People seemed to agree that Dads who showed up to things and were somewhat supportive were good fathers, but the list of requirements for good mothers seem to be attainable only by fictional characters. Of course a person's enjoyment of any book like this which is part essay/part memoir is strongly linked to how you feel about the person who spends the book sharing their opinions. I felt an attachment to the author, though my best friend hated her. She said she hated it enough not only to never read anything by Waldman again but to also boycott the works of her husband Michael. So the book evokes strong feelings.
There are basically two situations that can occur in which I feel like a bad mother. One is when I am actually interacting with the kids and get frustrated by them. The other is when I am not interacting with the kids and feeling happy about it. I suppose I was looking for a book that in a humorous way would tell me everybody felt like this and that it was really ok. This book would have lots of cute stories about annoying things that happen when you meet other moms on back to school night, etc. Now this book has some of these stories - and it is amazing how you can collect examples over the years of the infuriating things other moms have the nerve to say. However, the mom who wrote this book doesn't necessarily have the same failings that I do. So she can say she's a bad mother, but then go on to list all these lengths she has gone to for kids and then instead of feeling good I felt bad. The part that started making me feel bad rather than good was her long description of the lengths she went through to attempt to breastfeed particularly her youngest child. It is amazing how despite the fact that I don't really see why anyone feels they need to breastfeed I still managed to feel a little guilty that I never even considered trying.
But anyway, it starts off mostly with some essays on motherhood but develops into a full scale memoir which I found for the most part to be very interesting. Waldman was high powered public defender who quit her job to be a stay at home mom and hated it and that lead to some funny material. But what she actually ends up doing is becoming a writer so she can really be at home and be a working mom. And she has money. I actually got over being annoyed by all she does when she later admitted to having Bi-Polar disorder, because that cleared up for me how she managed to do so much for her kids sometimes. And hey bipolar disorder is interesting all by itself. Another very interesting part was when she found out that a child she was carrying had a genetic abnormality. She learned this from an amnio so by then she was very pregnant and it was one of those tricky things where the kid might be normal or might be severely deformed and disabled. She ends up terminating the pregnancy. I found it incredibly moving when she described the night before the abortion, just lying there feeling the baby move trying to savor the experience since she knew it would soon end. How touching - how completely horrible. Chapters like that made me feel for her. She had another scare with a later pregnancy. Later she talks about how horrible she felt when her other kid was determined to have ADHD and what a letdown this was for her. Then I wanted to slap her.
This is all interesting when you consider her writing career. When she was playing stay at home mommy she wrote these lighthearted "Mommy Track" mysteries which I would read one of it I came across it. It has a stay at home mom who used to be a public defender but now solves mysteries of course. Later after the abortion, she wrote more serious novels, including one which has a miscarriage and the aftermath of losing this hoped for child as a major plot component. Think I’ll pass on that.
Anyway, while I didn't always like Waldman, I found a lot of the book interesting. If I were an actual book critic I would have to complain how she compares her kids to food too often too - their buttery skin, for example. Sometimes I wondered if they were kids or croissants. But perhaps the most annoying thing for me was her insistence on throwing in political opinions (she went to Harvard Law with Obama I think she said). But I am someone who tries to avoid politics and didn't see why it needed to be in this particular book.

I'm not a mother but I still loved this book.

There is just something about Ayelet that I really like. Her honesty is so refreshing and thought provoking. I am mad that I moved away from my fantastic book-group in PA. I would've loved to have heard what they would have said about this book.
I know I will look at mothers differently after reading this.

Not bad

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was time well spent - especially after I skipped some parts. The book is very uneven. Some great storytelling (memorizing, I guess), some insightful discussion/musings, and some trite parts. I especially did not enjoy - even resented - the stereotyped, cliched and downright boring chapter on a mother's relation to her son and mother in law. I did appreciate the chapter on the author's struggles during her pregnancies, and accounts of household labor division.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

See above

Did Bad Mother inspire you to do anything?

I was thinking about some of her points; good food for thought / points of reference.

Any additional comments?

I thought the reader was great.

A Study in Modern Motherhood

It was a good read going behind the porch door of Ayalet Waldman's home. She shares a lot of different experiences that are part pf the makeup of a modern family of the 21st Century. I particularly liked her understanding of her son Zeke and his difficulties with attention and learning. Stating that really the gol is to "Find what you are good at... What makes you happy... and if you are very fortunate, spend your life doing those things...

My mistake

I don't know why I bought this. I thought it was a comedy. My youngest child being 23, I am well over the bad mother complex. I hope the readers have a little more self confidence in themselves.

Politics not necessary

As a working mother of two young children, I could relate to a lot of the material in this book. I would have enjoyed it SO much more if the author would have left the politics out of it. It really wasn't necessary and leaves me with no interest in any of Ms. Waldman's other works.

Eck.

This work is more about the author's political viewpoints and less about motherhood. I should have googled her before purchasing and suffering through it.

Oh, Mother!

I almost deleted this book several times. The title and media reviews suggested irony and humor. The contents demonstrate, instead, that intelligence plus obsessive introspection don't necessarily add up to insight, that blaming oneself doesn't exclude blaming others, and that having it all doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. There is a compelling narrative about the moral and psychic conflicts surrounding an elective abortion, but no ambiguity at all about the author's joy in getting guilty felons acquitted when she was a San Francisco lawyer. Or any concern that her young children might not be truly capable of the "consent" she obtained to present her rather horrifyingly intimate fantasies about them. There's a reason that many informed choices have a statutory age of consent. A lawyer should know about these things.
I finally gave up in the face of a political diatribe so relentlessly bombastic that it was simply intolerable to listen to-- even though I actually agreed with all of the opinions! Somewhere out there is an Ayelet Waldman who is clever and sophisticated, with a comic touch. But she doesn't appear very much in this book.

Depressing, negative navel-gazing from privilege

What would have made Bad Mother better?

Nigella Lawson, who I adore, recommended this book in some interview years ago. Maybe Nigella was clinging to her youth of feminism or something and thought recommending this book made her look hip. What does this book add to the conversation? I listened to about two hours, maybe a bit less, and I'm returning it. (Thank you, Audible, for returns!)

What do you think your next listen will be?

Henry James! Now there is a writer with insight into humanity, both male and female, who writes about life's problems and tragedies and yet is uplifting. The opposite of pop nonfiction like Waldman.

Did Mia Barron do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

She did fine.

Any additional comments?

I'm just amazed how someone who writes one piece that gets attention - loving her husband more than her kids - feels entitled to write some kind of treatise. Of course, the work speaks for itself: it's a waste of time. I don't know what I expected. Well, yes I do, I expected something truly humorous and encouraging and I took Nigella Lawson's recommendation blindly. Waldman is so self-absorbed...that's really the only humorous part. As someone who has dealt with tragedy in life and motherhood I feel entitled to brush aside these pop nonfiction writers who take themselves and their minute "problems" too seriously and to instead seek out only literature and nonfiction that will make my life better, more beautiful, more enjoyable and enlightened. Waldman is not for me.

Ugh!

I don't want to publicly insult the author, so I will just say that I wish my book club didn't pick this one!