Book Review: Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman is a non-fiction book, dealing with her experiences as a mother and the high expectations that come constantly with being a good mother or not, both in terms of society commentary and her own personal experiences. She has four children. It deals with working mothers, stay at home mothers, mothers that discipline their kids too much, mothers that do no disciplining at all, etc.

I think what touched me the most was her honest way of characterizing herself as a mother, her good moments, her bad moments, and the tragic. In one instance, she becomes pregnant, only to get a diagnosis of the baby having an extra chromosome, usually resulting in Down's Syndrome. She made the difficult choice to abort the child, and as pro-choice as the author was, it was still agonizing, and it was a choice not to be taken lightly (although she refers to the baby as Rocketship, as that was what one of her kids had nicknamed the baby). I personally disagreed with her reasoning behind her decision, but appreciated the honesty behind it.

This was a really interesting book, regardless of how one feels about abortion, and one that I highly recommend to be read.