From Motherhood’s Trenches

Pallavi Aiyar’s story is a familiar one to any career woman and feminist. She is an independent, successful woman and an award-winning journalist when the story begins, newly-wed, and reporting out of China from her hipster, hutong residence. A chapter in, she is pregnant and horrified as the life and career she’d carefully built up are dismantled, brick by brick. The rest of the book catalogues the birth of her two children, her adjustment to motherhood and an examination of the gendered nature of parenting. In spite of a rather absent husband and a tough first year or two of parenting, she soldiers on, dusting herself off after a fall, rising higher each time. So that by the time she writes this book, she already has two successful books under her belt. Her grit, determination and intelligence are apparent in the way each obstacle is handled and she is extremely fair, some might even say generous, in the credit she gives her husband for his support.

Aiyar is a minute observer, and her app­roach a methodical one. She has done a lot of research, and liberally sprinkles it with views from Harvey Karp, Sheryl Sandberg, and Stephen Marche as well as references to geopolitical situations and fin de siecle philosophy. And one cannot help but feel a twinge of empathy with the mother who looks crestfallen when Aiyar mentions that her son can only fall asleep after humming the entire overture of The Marriage of Fig­aro. She regrets the words immediately, yet the book is replete with references to a cer­tain privileged and rarefied existence full of jet-setting lifestyles, Mexican rugs, museums in Madrid, and Sunday dinner sushi rituals. As a result, despite parenthood being a universal experience, there is an elitist tilt to it, taking it beyond the realm of experience of the average, sleep-deprived young mother in Jabalpur or Muskogee.

Undoubtedly, Aiyar lays her life open and reports from the trenches. She is brutally honest and humble about her fears and fai­lures, offering prospective mothers a close view of the true nature of parenting. Yet, despite the numerous references to perineums and chewed nipples, there is a certain distance she maintains from the narrative. It lacks the warmth of a memoir, which is a pity, given the choice of subject. And even as she tells you in words that she finally sees why it is all worth it, she fails to demonstrate it, allowing the brisk read to interest you, but leaving you somewhat cold.