Blindsided by a Diaper: Over 30 Men and Women Reveal How Parenthood Changes a Relationship, edited by Dana Bedford Hilmer.
After I read this book, I was the person you didn’t want cornering you at the cocktail party…I couldn’t shut up about it. I was able to work it into every conversation I was having. “Oh, that’s interesting, because in this book I am reading….”
Blindsided by a Diaper is a collection of essays that examine parenthood from every emotional angle and are refreshingly honest, sometimes brutally so. What if you aren’t as good at nurturing as you thought you might be? What happens when you are jealous of the relationship your partner has with your child? What if, after having a child, you better understand that the decision not to have children?
I picked up this book thinking that it would be a quick fluff piece to read before bed and instead I found it to be both thought provoking and therapeutic (really, who could ask for anything more?). There were countless times when reading this book that I was shocked by the author’s profound articulation of an experience I had or was in the midst of. It was a relief to discover that I was not alone in my ambivalence about parenthood, and not only did it allow me an opening to bring such issues up in discussion with friends who are parents (hence the cocktail party warning), it gave me permission to be a little less hard on myself for feeling that ambivalence in the first place.
While the book does a good job of including dads’ perspective (much of parenting angst memoirs seem to be dominated by the moms), a criticism is that these essays represent a very particular section of society: middle to upper middle class heterosexual couples. I think that complicating the notion of what it means to be a parent even further by including even more diverse perspectives would have enriched this work. In addition, if you find parenthood to be clean, serene and utterly uncomplicated, then this book probably has very little to say to you (unless you want to know how the other 99.9% of people feel).
Finally, a logistical point: The book is a collection of stand-alone essays, grouped in six different areas: The Roles We Play, Seeing Each Other Differently, The Communication Challenge, Making Time for Intimacy, Learning on the Job, and Not What We Were Expecting. For those of us who are lucky if we have the time to read our mail, let alone a book for pleasure, the structure of this book makes it easy to pick up and read one essay when you have a few spare minutes.
Happy reading!
And for even more happy reading, check out these other carnival participants' reviews (I'll be adding more throughout the day):
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog reviews books for every mom on your list!
hobo mama reviews Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent.
Mama Knows Breast reviews bOObs: A Guide to Your Girls.
BreastFeedingMums reviews A Child Is Born, The Fat Ladies Club, Facing the First Five Years, NCT's Breastfeeding for Beginners, Mama Knows Breast, The Breastfeeding Cafe, The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers, and Mum's the Word.
James and the Giant Moose reviews Having Faith.
Breastfeeding 123 reviews Baby Matters, Revised 2nd Edition: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Your Baby .
The True Face of Birth reviews Mama Knows Breast.
International Breastfeeding Symbol reviews The Baby Book and Unconditional Parenting.
Crunchy Domestic Goddess reviews the video What do Babies Want?
Tales of life with a girl on the go reviews The Best Gift
7 comments:
I haven't heard of this book. Your review makes me think I should check it out - especially the part about being able to pick it up and put it down easily and still enjoy it. This is an important criteria for me, too.
Oh, no, my library doesn't have it! Looks like a quick trip to the bookstore is in order, as this sounds like just what I need with my son's current sleep troubles plaguing us!
Thanks for the review!
Sounds like another great book to me. In many ways it seems similar to one I reviewed, Mum's The Word: The Truth about Motherhood - it is also a pick-it-up-read-a-chapter-and-put-it-down-again sort of book. Perfect for busy parents!
sounds really interesting. thanks for the review!
Hey, I didn't see before that you were an anthro-mama!
As for the 9 months of breastfeeding...she does a great job of explaining that it still IS the best for your baby, but still explains all the dangers that are out there. Basically, it's like, if it gets into our own milk, we're not safe from it anywhere, so we have to get it out of our environment so it gets out of our bodies!
I hope you like the book. But I did warn you...it is scary at times.
Do you have any anthro-parenting books that you like, besides Our Babies, Ourselves?
i don't know of any other anthro-parenting books - Our Babies Ourselves is the only one i've read. but if i find any, i will definitely pass them on!
I am really excited to read the Diaper book as Deb has articulated, in fact I want to go buy it tomorrow. I am almost 35 and trying to decide if I want to have children in my committed relationship. If fact, I think I'll make him read it. Even though he is a "renaissance man" I sense that children would change my life more than his. I read Baby Love by Rebecca Walker and, while interesting and a good read, it was not helpful to me for that purpose. There are a lot of mixed emotions in my thoughts: guilt, resentment, panic, excitement, defensiveness. Will I miss out on one of the great learning experiences of life if I don't? But, I LIKE my life dammit, if it ain't broke, why change things? And I see plenty of people without children that are perfectly happy. Some people say that one day something just clicks. I recently became an aunt and that brough me a bit closer to it. But, I really feel that I could be happy in my life either way. Is that what ambivalence is? It makes me feel better to know that those happy parents pushing their stollers feel ambivalence and doubt too. You know what they say, "Never judge your insides against someone's outsides".
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