This book is fairly uninteresting. Can you read the white type above the title? That's really enough. The point of the book is to sympathise with the Dad, but I never do. I know it's meant to be a sort of, parents are human, we make mistakes, we've all been there, could've been me etc. But just no. No, this could never have been me. Not because I can't imagine the initial smack, but because I can't imagine every selfish, thoughtless act that follows, each of which prolong the misery. The consequences of the smack are not out the Dad's control, he actively makes self-centered, anti-child decisions that worsen the situation. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas worked this theme with a lot more sympathy, humour and detail. Room by Emma Donoghue used the voice of the child narrator with a lot more subtlety and craft.
This week I also read Bossypants by Tina Fey. I'm not counting it because it's a re-read. I just wanted to compare it to Marieke Hardy. There is a gulf between them. Tina Fey is confessional and funny and seriously likeable where Hardy is overshare-y, pretentious and irritating. I love that on parenting, Tina and I independently came up with the theory that the best way to say no to drugs is to stick with beer. And that she gives voice to the mind-bending revelation that every one has once they become a mother, that once upon a time, your own mother mothered you.
There are a couple of bits I don't love, however. Her chapter about breastfeeding voices this really common complaint that I just don't understand at all. That there is this really well-populated, self-righteous, cruel breastfeeding lobby comprised of holier-than-thou breastfeeders who harrass non-breastfeeders and make them feel bad. I have breastfed two babies in the exact crunchy, well-educated American environs she describes (she says Brooklyn and Hollywood, I'll offer Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.) and have simply never encountered this. I knew women who breastfed on demand and on schedule, for a few weeks or for several years, with pumps and bottles or with boobs out all the time. (ETA: Holy hell, I totally forgot that I regularly went to a playgroup where women cross nursed each others' babies . I did not participate). I also knew women who formula fed from the start, in tandem with breastmilk or not, and those who started formula after a period of breastfeeding. Reasons for not breastfeeding included that it hurt, it wasn't productive, it wasn't convenient at work or at home, or simply "I wanted my body back". I talked about breasts and breastfeeding a lot during the first year of each of my child's life. In that time I never had or heard a single conversation between mothers that wasn't supportive and understanding of whatever feeding choice a mother had made or thrust upon her. Breastfeeding was certainly encouraged but if it wasn't happening, c'est la vie. I think Tina Fey is setting up a dynamic of mothers attacking mothers that doesn't exist. And I think she's doing it because she personally is insecure about formula feeding her baby.
I know how that goes because I, too, am insecure about baby stuff! I think there's a really logical parallel between breastfeeding and vaginally birthing a child. Both activities are on the decline in rich, educated countries, despite both being hugely advantageous for mother and child and much more achievable than the rates of participation would suggest. Both suffer from myths as to the level of difficulty involved, and both have this bad rap for being supported by superior, indifferent bitches. I had two caesareans (sob!) and I'm hugely insecure about this. I almost actively tried to encounter the mean-girl vaginal birth lobby. I joined ICAN, I met doulas and midwives, I talked in a self-flagellating manner about my children's births all the damn time. I was never met with the kind of dismissive show-off-y-ness or aggressive attacks that Tina Fey describes. I don't want to say that it never happens, because I know better than to deny a woman's own descriptions of her life, but for real, it just cannot be that common. I cannot extrapolate from Tina's experience to the wider world, and I'm here to present a counter narrative. In fact, I think that by presenting her experience in general terms- that "Teat Nazis" "brag endlessly" and "grill you about your choices" (See that! She's writing in the second person! That means it didn't just happen to her, it will happen to you!)- she's doing women a disservice. No, not about the breastfeeding! I mean dragging out this idea that women attack each other all the time. Boo! I'm so sick of that.
At best, it happened to Tina, and she thought it happened to everyone. In which, I'm sorry you feel that way, TF. At worst, it didn't happen to her or she knows it doesn't happen to everyone, but she thought it would be funny to include examples of women being bitches over a dumb, girly thing like boozfeeding. Maybe a bit of both. Scenario A, plus she thought it would be funny? I give up.
Ok, onwards and upwards. I've got Meg Wolitzer and Joan Didion on the horizon. Can't wait!
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