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A review by jenthebookfanatic
What We Carry by Maya Shanbhag Lang
5.0
What We Carry is writer Maya Shanbhag Lang’s memoir about her relationship with her mother. Maya's parents had traveled from India to the USA for her mother’s medical training and ended up staying on permanently after she became a psychiatrist. Lang had always thought of her mother as a superwoman who managed a career alongside parenthood....doing everything for everyone all whilst making it look effortless and never asking for help.
After having her daughter, Zoe, Maya struggled with severe post-partum depression, even having suicidal thoughts. She reached out to her mother for help and was abruptly denied. When her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Maya is confronted with the fact that the mother she thought she knew had more facets to her.
Lang frames her experiences around an Indian folktale of a woman who enters a rising river, her child in her arms. She must decide between saving her child or herself. For one reason or another neither choice would bring praise, only criticism. “Until we are in the river, up to our shoulders—until we are in that position ourselves, we cannot say what the woman will do. We must not judge. That is the lesson of the story. Whatever a woman decides, it is not easy.”
I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by the author and quickly realized that I needed a copy of this book in order physically take notes and highlight the meaningful passages. Loved it and would recommend it.
After having her daughter, Zoe, Maya struggled with severe post-partum depression, even having suicidal thoughts. She reached out to her mother for help and was abruptly denied. When her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Maya is confronted with the fact that the mother she thought she knew had more facets to her.
Lang frames her experiences around an Indian folktale of a woman who enters a rising river, her child in her arms. She must decide between saving her child or herself. For one reason or another neither choice would bring praise, only criticism. “Until we are in the river, up to our shoulders—until we are in that position ourselves, we cannot say what the woman will do. We must not judge. That is the lesson of the story. Whatever a woman decides, it is not easy.”
I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by the author and quickly realized that I needed a copy of this book in order physically take notes and highlight the meaningful passages. Loved it and would recommend it.