Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life
Or How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
When Salon.com published Faulkner Fox’s article on motherhood, “What I Learned from Losing My Mind,” the response was so overwhelming that Salon reran the piece twice. The experience made Faulkner realize that she was not alone—that the country is full of women who are anxious and conflicted about their roles as mothers and wives.
In Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life, her provocative, brutally honest, and often hilarious memoir of motherhood, Faulkner explores the causes of her unhappiness, as well as the societal and cultural forces that American mothers have to contend with. From the time of her first pregnancy, Faulkner found herself—and her body—scrutinized by doctors, friends, strangers, and, perhaps most of all, herself. In addition to the significant social pressures of raising the perfect child and being the perfect mom, Faulkner also found herself increasingly incensed by the unequal distribution of household labor and infuriated by the gender inequity in both her home and others’. And though she loves her children and her husband passionately, is thankful for her bountiful middle-class life, and feels wracked with guilt for being unhappy, she just can’t seem to experience the sense of satisfaction that she thought would come with the package. She’s finally got it all—the husband, the house, the kids, an interesting part-time job, even a few hours a week to write—so why does she feel so conflicted?
Faulkner sheds light on the fear, confusion, and isolation experienced by many new mothers, mapping the terrain of contemporary domesticity, marriage, and motherhood in a voice that is candid, irreverent, and deeply personal, while always chronicling the unparalleled joy she and other mothers take in their children.
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Fox, a happily married 30-something, has degrees from Yale, Harvard and Vermont College; is the mother of two healthy young boys; writes poetry; and lives in a nice house in a decent-sized Texan city with a fair amount of culture. Before she became a part-time working mother, she had a challenging and stimulating job as director of the National Abortion Rights Action League of North Carolina. Yet despite such success, Fox is unhappy. She doesn't have close female friends who are also mothers with whom she can have intelligent conversations. She's torn between having a home birth (which "takes a lot of self-confidence, a lot of body confidence") and going to the hospital, "a male-dominated medical establishment" ("Pain relief or control strikes me as a real bummer of a choice to offer women," she laments). She's also peeved that she does more work around the house than her husband, a professor at the local university. At the heart of many of Fox's plights lie the issues of power and control, questions many women in her situation grapple with. Certainly, Fox's frustrations which she relays in conversational, almost spontaneous prose are sure to hit home with women who are trying to "live as mothers and individuals at the same time." But readers who've decided to make mothering their full-time job could feel slighted by Fox's treatment; she feels they're at the "bottom" of the "totem pole of power." Consequently, Fox's alternately funny, engaging and repetitive memoir may have a limited appeal.
