Edited by my favorite parenting author, Ariel Gore, Breeder answers a special call in the mothering section of the bookstore. For those moments when you debate the politics of naming genetalia, or wonder if other moms worry about passing on eating disorders, this is your book. Honest essays on maintaining your sexuality, feeling angry without hurting anyone and how children impact all the corners of our life fill this treasure.
I’d recommend every new-mom-to-be read it during her first pregnancy, but I’m not sure it’s comprehensible until the sleep deprivation and suspension of logic that accompany early childhood have already been tasted. Once you’ve been face-to-face with the desparate challenges, as well as the heart-exploding love that parenthood brings, this book provides laughter, tears, gadflies, and most importantly, validation.
Essays include thoughts on breastpumps at work, adoption, fertility treatments, birth, miscarriage, honoring your (pre-childbirth) dreams while raising children, the similarities and differences between toddlers and bad boyfriends, economic struggles, generational conflict- and resolution-, and children with disabilities. Each of these topics, and more, is shared in the manner you would expect from your oldest, closest friend, sharing triumphs, tragedies and mundane everyday struggles with complete honesty and a great deal of humor.
Wait until you’ve hit a spot in your parenting years when you question yourself for ever getting into such a huge obligation, a night when you think there is no one out there who could possibly understand your individual family challenges, then pull out Breeder. You’ll no longer feel alone.
FYI: I laughed myself to tears during the essay, “Baby Vibe.”