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A review by sedeara
Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters by Erica Komisar
4.0
I will admit that I read this book to confirm/feel good about choices I have already made. That's the only kind of parenting book I'll read these days -- I need all the support I can get, and with my family and closest friends out of town, sometimes a book is all I have at the moment to tell me I'm being a good mom!
Books like this that urge mothers to prioritize parenting at certain points in their life are always criticized as being anti-feminist, which I think is unfair. What is really unfair is that women pay a price no matter WHAT they choose, and that attempting to "do it all" really translates as "giving it all," and there is nothing less feminist than asking a woman not to retain anything at the end of the day for herself because she's used it all up for her employer and her family. Because women pay a price for motherhood no matter what they choose, it's important that they put some serious thought into those choices and which prices they are most willing to pay, or how they can manage to pay the least. This book is a good counterpoint to "The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?" by Leslie Bennets, which argues against women dropping out of the workforce when their children are young.
Both books are fantastic, well-researched, agenda-driven, and focused on the well-being of women and families. They just come down on different sides of the cost-benefit analysis, and both of them have informed my own choice to cobble together a hybrid life as a mostly at-home mom who remains in the workforce part-time, even though what I REALLY want at this point in my life is to just be a SAHM.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, this book does not urge mothers to drop out of the workforce while their children are young, but to find a way to prioritize parenting during these years. Her focus is on presence, and she argues that an at-home parent who is emotionally or intellectually distracted is not much different from a parent who is physically gone.
She got a little too Freudian in some places for my tastes, and her blanket assumptions that if you find parenting boring, it means there was something wrong with the way YOU were parented rubbed me a bit the wrong way. And although she tries to be inclusive, she really is very much writing to a white, middle-class audience -- the kind that might be able to afford some flexibility in their worklife, that has a present/supportive partner, and that could pay for a little therapy for themselves or their children if needed. As often happens in books of this type, there are places where the line between the author's personal parenting philosophy and the actual research is not very clear. But it did help elicit a greater sense of understanding about the emotional reality my own small child lives in, and anything that can help me be a more compassionate, present parent is a win in my book.
PopSugar Reading Challenge Item: A Book About Mental Health
Books like this that urge mothers to prioritize parenting at certain points in their life are always criticized as being anti-feminist, which I think is unfair. What is really unfair is that women pay a price no matter WHAT they choose, and that attempting to "do it all" really translates as "giving it all," and there is nothing less feminist than asking a woman not to retain anything at the end of the day for herself because she's used it all up for her employer and her family. Because women pay a price for motherhood no matter what they choose, it's important that they put some serious thought into those choices and which prices they are most willing to pay, or how they can manage to pay the least. This book is a good counterpoint to "The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?" by Leslie Bennets, which argues against women dropping out of the workforce when their children are young.
Both books are fantastic, well-researched, agenda-driven, and focused on the well-being of women and families. They just come down on different sides of the cost-benefit analysis, and both of them have informed my own choice to cobble together a hybrid life as a mostly at-home mom who remains in the workforce part-time, even though what I REALLY want at this point in my life is to just be a SAHM.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, this book does not urge mothers to drop out of the workforce while their children are young, but to find a way to prioritize parenting during these years. Her focus is on presence, and she argues that an at-home parent who is emotionally or intellectually distracted is not much different from a parent who is physically gone.
She got a little too Freudian in some places for my tastes, and her blanket assumptions that if you find parenting boring, it means there was something wrong with the way YOU were parented rubbed me a bit the wrong way. And although she tries to be inclusive, she really is very much writing to a white, middle-class audience -- the kind that might be able to afford some flexibility in their worklife, that has a present/supportive partner, and that could pay for a little therapy for themselves or their children if needed. As often happens in books of this type, there are places where the line between the author's personal parenting philosophy and the actual research is not very clear. But it did help elicit a greater sense of understanding about the emotional reality my own small child lives in, and anything that can help me be a more compassionate, present parent is a win in my book.
PopSugar Reading Challenge Item: A Book About Mental Health