About book A Life's Work: On Becoming A Mother (2003)
My grandfather sent me this book a couple months after the birth of my son. Honest, refreshing, comforting... Cusk tells of her rough transition to motherhood. It was nice to hear that you can love your child and feel the burden of motherhood at the same time. The right book at the right time.Author: Rachel CuskPublisher: PicadorCopyright: 2001Genre: Memoir/ ParentingPages: 212Date Read- 6/10- 8/10QUOTES:_________(p. 5)...after a child is born the lives of its mother and father diverge, so that where before they were living in a state of some equality, now they exist in a sort of feudal relation to each other. A day spent at home caring for a child could not be more different from a day spent working in the office. Whatever their relative merits, they are days spent on the opposite side of the world. From that irreconcilable beginning, it seemed to me that some kind of slide into deeper patriarchy was inevitable: that the father's day would gradually gather to it the armour of the outside world, of money and authority and importance, while the mother's remit would extend to cover the entire domestic sphere.(p. 7)Looking after children is a low-status occupation. It is isolating, frequently boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting. It erodes your self esteem and your membership of the adult world. The more it is separated from the rest of life, the harder it gets; and yet to bring your child into your own existence, rather than move yourself to theirs, is hard too. Een when you agree on a version of living that is acceptable to everybody, there are still longings that go unmet.(p. 82)...aware of nothing but the child, she enfolded him with fervent tenderness, as though trying to protect him with her entire body.(p. 87)...when I leave her the world bears the taint of my leaving, so that abandonment must now be subtracted from the sum of whatever I choose to do.(p.88) .. (Madame Bovary) is the essence of a bad mother: the woman who persists in wanting to be the center of attention.(p.91) the baby loves like a butterfly or a hummingbird, briefly bestowing himself hither or thither, zig-zagging about his doting world with the irrefutable logic of pure impulse. (Quade at 13 months)...It is in some ways relieving, the development of his preferences and moods, the slow emergence, like another birth, of his character.(p. 138) When we go for a walk I see young women in the street, beautiful and careless, and a pang of mourning for some oblique, lost self makes my heart clench. I look down at my child sleeping in his stroller, the dark fringe of his lashes forming arcs on his pale skin, and a contrary rush of love gusts over me; and for some time this is how I am , blown this way and that , careering around like a crazy, febrile gauge trying to find North.(p. 141)...parenthood is redemptive, transformative, creative. It is the means by which the self's limits are broken open and entrance found to a greater landscape.(p.185)We are heroic and cruel, authoritative and then sentimental, cleaving to our guesses and inspirations and bizarre rituals in the absence of any real understanding of what we are doing or how it should properly be done.(p.190)I remember reading somewhere that in primitive societies people sleep all together, huddled with their babies in groups; they do not sit outside their children's bedrooms with a stopwatch and a childcare manual at 3am.
There are so many 'celebrity baby books' out there, none of which I would touch with a barge pole, with their soft-focus vomit-inducing coochie-coochie-coo. I don't even fancy those matey ones that slap their thighs, wink and hoot 'What am I like....' whilst recounting a string of sanitised 'parenting fail' moments. This is different. This one looks you in the eye with a dangerously frank expression and says 'no, I really am crap at parenting'.Clearly pregnancy did not addle Ms Cusk's brain. I was reaching for my dictionary by page 2 (would not have expected anything less, having read much of her excellent fiction). It is intelligent, incisive, thoughr provoking. It dares to say things other books don't, and there were many sections that struck a chord with me, notably the description of a caesarean, and the worry afterwards: "...in truth my experience of birth was more like the experience of having an appendix removed than what most people would understand by 'labour'. Without its connecting hours, the glue of its pain, the literalness of its passage, I fear that I will not make it to motherhood.'Some sections are conventionally amusing, such as the scene at the breastfeeding clinic, or the tale of being wrong-footed by a toddler group clique. And she is disparaging about almost all the health professionals she encounters: "A health visitor came to see us in our embattled kitchen. She produced sheaves of leaflets and laid each one lovingly on the table for me to study while behind her the baby looted her handbag, undetected'.There is perhaps a sniffy air about the narrative that might put some readers off. What comes across at times is a highly intellectual woman in a situation where intellect has little or no bearing. It confers no special status. Women with lower IQs might well be better at it. Probably not intentional. There is a type of mum she is addressing, though: the ones who, like her, don't identify with the eareth mothers they read about in books, or feel cheated by the homogenity of the 'propaganda' handed out by midwives. Her assessment of 'Emma's Diary', which I was also given on an antenatal visit and which still sits on my bookshelf, was savagely amusing. To admit you sympathise, or even agree with her observations is to place yourself outside the Sisterhood, but I guess there are people out there who will, and I count myself among their number.I knew the book was controversial. That was part of the attraction for me. There is a brave honesty in many of the events and feelings she recounts. Many will not approve. But I think if there is a cause for concern in there it is the striking similarity between the narrative tone of this, and the voice of Eva in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. Now that really is a scary thought.
Do You like book A Life's Work: On Becoming A Mother (2003)?
This book chronicles the author's bumpy journey into motherhood. The author describes her transformation from a working woman who is able to sleep in late and have a rich social/cultural life in London to a busy mother subsisting on little sleep who can scarcely find the time or motivation to do any work. Cusk describes how this change was thrust upon her with little warning or preparation, how she resented it terribly at times, and details her progress in climbing out of this haze. I think most parents will be able to identify with the profound issues or observations Cusk makes. Work/life balance (whatever that means) is elusive, to be a parent is to feel perpetually conflicted, and the family is a private sphere that can be hard to discuss with others.I liked the book when Cusk was funny and wry and less so when she belabored a point with complaint after complaint. Also, I wished the book had been in chronological order so we could follow Cusk's progress throughout the year.
—Abby
I think this is the last of the new-mother memoirs I'm going to read. This is the headiest of the ones that I've read. I had lots of quotes I wanted to write down, but of course, I'm past the days of being able to have a pen and paper near me.It's also of course the story of an upper middle class married woman bemoaning the trials of new motherhood, of how it negated her identity. I liked the conversation between her and a friend who had a baby the same age as hers. They were talking about all the awful things about being a new mother, and then the friend said something like, "Well, there are some good moments, too." And the author nearly said out loud, "No there aren't."
—Artnoose Noose
The language felt more complex than necessary. It made it hard to "get into" the book because there was this over abundance of words in even a simple description. I also would have preferred a more narrative style, such as Origins by Annie Murphy Paul. The tone was actually like a teen horror novel. ("We crossed the street. i was alarmed by the violent banshee cry of a miniscule infant, engorged with...")-not an excerpt from the book, but what it was like. I feel very let down! I read and read hoping to live it, but it never happened.
—Nicole
