LOVE WORKS LIKE THIS
[Books]
Travels through a Pregnant Year
By Lauren Slater
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 175 pages
THIS book was put aside for me to review because I am currently expecting my third child and my interest in other pregnant women is expected to be immense. This is, in fact, untrue.
I can’t speak for other pregnant women, but I dislike being lumped with other expectant mothers in one tumescent heap. I do not feel part of a sisterhood. I like to think I am unique, each one of my pregnancies is special and unlike any other. I do not relate to anyone else’s lower back pains, leg cramps and morning sickness. I am annoyed when I am offered advice on how to cope, or if someone tries to sympathise with my discomfort. Empathy is wasted on me. It’s impossible that anyone could understand how I feel since they are not me.
Oh, and I detest having my stomach felt, stroked, patted, caressed. What an invasion of privacy – you might as well pinch my nipples.
Okay, so I am a bit of an ogre, especially when with child. I definitely don’t enjoy bonding with other mums-to-be and I do not like reading lovey-dovey, cosy accounts about the joys of motherhood and the beauty of natural childbirth. (There isn’t anything natural about squeezing something that big through an orifice that small.) Thankfully, Love Works Like This is not that kind of book. I realised that when I noted the author’s name.
Lauren Slater is a psychologist who writes about her own mental illness. I prefer her books to those by Elizabeth Wurtzel, who has made a career out of whining obsessively (and annoyingly) about her neuroses. Slater, on the other hand, is sharply funny, cynical and sarcastic. Her books don’t reek of self-pity and self-indulgence. They’re brutally honest, but coming from her, the truth, no matter how disturbing, is just the truth. You don’t get the impression that, like Wurtzel, she’s wallowing in the grisly details of her illness, secretly delighting in how they will make juicy copy and take her up the bestsellers list.
Love is Slater’s account of being mentally ill and pregnant. It’s about coping with pregnancy and, often, not coping at all, or at any rate, coping rather badly. No doubt, mothers-to-be who religiously pop vitamins, abstain from coffee and join ante-natal support groups will be horrified by Slater’s tale. She stops taking Prozac in the very early days of her pregnancy, but when her mental health declines drastically, she goes back on her medication. In fact, she is prescribed a particularly potent cocktail of drugs and, after some intense soul-searching, decides to proceed with her pregnancy despite the risks.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for her. First she has to make this very hard decision, and then spend the rest of her life wondering if she did the right thing. In the course of the book, Slater never quite comes to terms with what she has done, and that includes choosing to conceive in the first place. When her pregnancy test is positive, she lists the pros and cons of pregnancy. There are 12 cons but just one pro – learning a new kind of love. This book is, more than anything, about her groping in the dark of her independence and her illness, in search of that love.
I think she speaks to all mothers in questioning the nature of parenthood. Forget the problems mental illness poses. Is it fair to expect an instant bond between mother and child? Why are we expected to welcome a perfect stranger into our lives, no questions asked, no doubts experienced, simply because she has lived inside us for nine months? And is it weird to feel resentment; to want to be alone sometimes; to dislike the idea of breastfeeding; to choose to have a caesarean; to feel like you don’t know and don’t want to know this little person who wants so much and, it would seem at first, gives so little in return?
If you’re a mother or mother-to-be who has asked any of the above questions, Slater will seem like a kindred spirit with whom you can let your guard down. And if you’ve ever longed to snarl at self-righteous types who preach incessantly about the benefits of natural birth and breastfeeding, and the dangers of epidurals or any kind of pain relief, she offers relief, too. Her encounter, for example, with an unsympathetic and smug ante-natal instructor is exhilaratingly scary, hilarious and heartening. Slater can be aggressive and perverse, quarrelsome and stubborn, but what a comfort that is when she’s on your side.
I also like the way she constantly offers us interesting titbits to exclaim over and wonder about. I especially love the story of buried placentas continuing to grow, under the influence of the massive amounts of oestrogen they contain, extending up to 30 miles underground. It’s an amazing story, like something out of a sci-fi novel, and to me, it conveys all the wonders and horrors of pregnancy, motherhood and womanhood – all that power and glory. I wonder why not more pregnant women are as prickly and difficult as I am!
Slater is as prickly as they come, and I love this. I love her defiance, her cynicism and her pessimism; her belligerence, her disbelief and her grudging love. Most of all, I love her vivid, fleshy words that give the most basic actions a wildly sensuous, earthy flavour. Her “un-motherly” description of her baby’s “dripping pink” mouth I find adorable.
I wish there were more books like this one, describing the strange, changeable country that is motherhood. It’s not all warm snuggles and sweet smiles, warn the usual tomes aimed at parents-to-be. But what are sore nipples and sleepless nights compared with the loss of identity and feelings of isolation that often come with being a parent, and especially a mother?
It’s just a shame that, because they are experienced by Slater, these emotions may be construed by some as simply the symptoms of an unbalanced mind. We need more “sane” women to speak up and write about the “dark” side of motherhood. Post-natal depression aside, women need to know it’s okay and normal not to always feel 100% about being a mum.
Travels through a Pregnant Year
By Lauren Slater
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 175 pages
THIS book was put aside for me to review because I am currently expecting my third child and my interest in other pregnant women is expected to be immense. This is, in fact, untrue.
I can’t speak for other pregnant women, but I dislike being lumped with other expectant mothers in one tumescent heap. I do not feel part of a sisterhood. I like to think I am unique, each one of my pregnancies is special and unlike any other. I do not relate to anyone else’s lower back pains, leg cramps and morning sickness. I am annoyed when I am offered advice on how to cope, or if someone tries to sympathise with my discomfort. Empathy is wasted on me. It’s impossible that anyone could understand how I feel since they are not me.
Oh, and I detest having my stomach felt, stroked, patted, caressed. What an invasion of privacy – you might as well pinch my nipples.
Okay, so I am a bit of an ogre, especially when with child. I definitely don’t enjoy bonding with other mums-to-be and I do not like reading lovey-dovey, cosy accounts about the joys of motherhood and the beauty of natural childbirth. (There isn’t anything natural about squeezing something that big through an orifice that small.) Thankfully, Love Works Like This is not that kind of book. I realised that when I noted the author’s name.
Lauren Slater is a psychologist who writes about her own mental illness. I prefer her books to those by Elizabeth Wurtzel, who has made a career out of whining obsessively (and annoyingly) about her neuroses. Slater, on the other hand, is sharply funny, cynical and sarcastic. Her books don’t reek of self-pity and self-indulgence. They’re brutally honest, but coming from her, the truth, no matter how disturbing, is just the truth. You don’t get the impression that, like Wurtzel, she’s wallowing in the grisly details of her illness, secretly delighting in how they will make juicy copy and take her up the bestsellers list.
Love is Slater’s account of being mentally ill and pregnant. It’s about coping with pregnancy and, often, not coping at all, or at any rate, coping rather badly. No doubt, mothers-to-be who religiously pop vitamins, abstain from coffee and join ante-natal support groups will be horrified by Slater’s tale. She stops taking Prozac in the very early days of her pregnancy, but when her mental health declines drastically, she goes back on her medication. In fact, she is prescribed a particularly potent cocktail of drugs and, after some intense soul-searching, decides to proceed with her pregnancy despite the risks.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for her. First she has to make this very hard decision, and then spend the rest of her life wondering if she did the right thing. In the course of the book, Slater never quite comes to terms with what she has done, and that includes choosing to conceive in the first place. When her pregnancy test is positive, she lists the pros and cons of pregnancy. There are 12 cons but just one pro – learning a new kind of love. This book is, more than anything, about her groping in the dark of her independence and her illness, in search of that love.
I think she speaks to all mothers in questioning the nature of parenthood. Forget the problems mental illness poses. Is it fair to expect an instant bond between mother and child? Why are we expected to welcome a perfect stranger into our lives, no questions asked, no doubts experienced, simply because she has lived inside us for nine months? And is it weird to feel resentment; to want to be alone sometimes; to dislike the idea of breastfeeding; to choose to have a caesarean; to feel like you don’t know and don’t want to know this little person who wants so much and, it would seem at first, gives so little in return?
If you’re a mother or mother-to-be who has asked any of the above questions, Slater will seem like a kindred spirit with whom you can let your guard down. And if you’ve ever longed to snarl at self-righteous types who preach incessantly about the benefits of natural birth and breastfeeding, and the dangers of epidurals or any kind of pain relief, she offers relief, too. Her encounter, for example, with an unsympathetic and smug ante-natal instructor is exhilaratingly scary, hilarious and heartening. Slater can be aggressive and perverse, quarrelsome and stubborn, but what a comfort that is when she’s on your side.
I also like the way she constantly offers us interesting titbits to exclaim over and wonder about. I especially love the story of buried placentas continuing to grow, under the influence of the massive amounts of oestrogen they contain, extending up to 30 miles underground. It’s an amazing story, like something out of a sci-fi novel, and to me, it conveys all the wonders and horrors of pregnancy, motherhood and womanhood – all that power and glory. I wonder why not more pregnant women are as prickly and difficult as I am!
Slater is as prickly as they come, and I love this. I love her defiance, her cynicism and her pessimism; her belligerence, her disbelief and her grudging love. Most of all, I love her vivid, fleshy words that give the most basic actions a wildly sensuous, earthy flavour. Her “un-motherly” description of her baby’s “dripping pink” mouth I find adorable.
I wish there were more books like this one, describing the strange, changeable country that is motherhood. It’s not all warm snuggles and sweet smiles, warn the usual tomes aimed at parents-to-be. But what are sore nipples and sleepless nights compared with the loss of identity and feelings of isolation that often come with being a parent, and especially a mother?
It’s just a shame that, because they are experienced by Slater, these emotions may be construed by some as simply the symptoms of an unbalanced mind. We need more “sane” women to speak up and write about the “dark” side of motherhood. Post-natal depression aside, women need to know it’s okay and normal not to always feel 100% about being a mum.
posted by 9T9 at
2:55 pm
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