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oofsharkz73's review
In the beginning of the novel, Conaboy implies that she intends to break the research down into a digestible read. It was anything but. Maybe it had the chance to get better, I really wanted it to, but I couldn't even get halfway through without being thoroughly confused. Each point she made, every article she brought up, lead to ultimately nowhere. Just a tangle of different articles and references that the author was poorly analyzing.
servemethesky's review
informative
slow-paced
3.5
This was a solid and interesting read, though written in a very dry and hard-to-digest style. I think the insights are valuable and this message needs to get out there more. I'm a bit surprised that a science journalist wasn't better at unpacking this complex information and making it more of a digestible, compelling narrative.
vnture's review
Terrible. Weird perseverating about darwinism, tokenism of non-western peoples/cultures, and v little actual science
checkplease's review
3.0
**Goodreads Giveaway Winner**
I've already read a lot of criticism of this book, some of which I think is fair and some of which is not. Chelsea Conaboy is a mother and public health journalist, and “Mother Brain” is her survey of the neuroscience research related to the experience of parenthood: from conception, labor and delivery, through the infant years into childhood. Conaboy is an engaging writer, and I walked away with some interesting tidbits of learning.
The unfair criticisms:
-"She's not a scientist, just a journalist/She's inserting her own opinion too much." I think that some of the best books that pull together the research base on a given topic are written by journalists. As a mental health professional, I often learn something from writers who have examined the research and interviewed luminaries in my own field. Sometimes the reporting does end up being clunky, fuzzy, or inaccurate (as in Jesse Singal's Quick Fix, which I read just before this), but I don't think that's the case here. Conaboy uses her own experience to declare her interests in the topic and how the research aligns with her own parenting journey, but she is quite careful in allowing for a diversity of experience by race, culture, socioeconomics, and gender identity. She also is transparent in saying where the science ends and her own hunches begin.
-"This book is too technical/this book is not technical enough." I felt she does a decent job describing the nuances of brain research while balancing these with stories and reflections. A reader can dip in and out of the finer details as needed, and take what they need from it.
-"Many of these studies are small and not worth focusing on." This is pretty much her overriding point: too much emphasis has been placed on a limited set of participants and questions, to the exclusion of other more important areas of inquiry. She identifies the historical and political forces at work to ensure that research questions that align with a male-dominant, heteronormative view get funded. Her anecdote about interviewing T. Berry Brazleton is especially affecting.
The fair:
-"The title is misleading." As many have noted, so much of the content of the book is intended to widen the focus from women who give birth to their children to the "everyone else" involved in this process we call parenting. At the very least, the title should use quotations marks around "Mother Brain" to hint that the focus here extends much wider. I can't imagine many interested in the data on fathers, for example, will expect to find that focus based on the title.
-"The book is poorly organized and says in many chapters what it could say in an essay." While I don't think all that's here could be pared down to an essay, I do agree that the organizational style works against the reader internalizing important ideas that are sometimes buried in the text. It feels like Conaboy thinks the idea of "Maternal Instinct" is so entrenched that she needs the amount of content she uses to disprove it, but I suspect many readers will readily agree with her point and not find it to be the revolutionary debunking the author feels it is.
I think a skilled editor could have reorganized the book to create a more linear though-line, since it does end up taking the reader in circles at times. The same book with slightly less content and a better organizational structure could have really been dynamite. This is especially important, because I suspect many postpartum mothers will attempt to read this book in fits and starts, a few pages at a time, as they make their way through a day of childcare. Therefore the experience of reading this book could and should be a less effortful one.
I've already read a lot of criticism of this book, some of which I think is fair and some of which is not. Chelsea Conaboy is a mother and public health journalist, and “Mother Brain” is her survey of the neuroscience research related to the experience of parenthood: from conception, labor and delivery, through the infant years into childhood. Conaboy is an engaging writer, and I walked away with some interesting tidbits of learning.
The unfair criticisms:
-"She's not a scientist, just a journalist/She's inserting her own opinion too much." I think that some of the best books that pull together the research base on a given topic are written by journalists. As a mental health professional, I often learn something from writers who have examined the research and interviewed luminaries in my own field. Sometimes the reporting does end up being clunky, fuzzy, or inaccurate (as in Jesse Singal's Quick Fix, which I read just before this), but I don't think that's the case here. Conaboy uses her own experience to declare her interests in the topic and how the research aligns with her own parenting journey, but she is quite careful in allowing for a diversity of experience by race, culture, socioeconomics, and gender identity. She also is transparent in saying where the science ends and her own hunches begin.
-"This book is too technical/this book is not technical enough." I felt she does a decent job describing the nuances of brain research while balancing these with stories and reflections. A reader can dip in and out of the finer details as needed, and take what they need from it.
-"Many of these studies are small and not worth focusing on." This is pretty much her overriding point: too much emphasis has been placed on a limited set of participants and questions, to the exclusion of other more important areas of inquiry. She identifies the historical and political forces at work to ensure that research questions that align with a male-dominant, heteronormative view get funded. Her anecdote about interviewing T. Berry Brazleton is especially affecting.
The fair:
-"The title is misleading." As many have noted, so much of the content of the book is intended to widen the focus from women who give birth to their children to the "everyone else" involved in this process we call parenting. At the very least, the title should use quotations marks around "Mother Brain" to hint that the focus here extends much wider. I can't imagine many interested in the data on fathers, for example, will expect to find that focus based on the title.
-"The book is poorly organized and says in many chapters what it could say in an essay." While I don't think all that's here could be pared down to an essay, I do agree that the organizational style works against the reader internalizing important ideas that are sometimes buried in the text. It feels like Conaboy thinks the idea of "Maternal Instinct" is so entrenched that she needs the amount of content she uses to disprove it, but I suspect many readers will readily agree with her point and not find it to be the revolutionary debunking the author feels it is.
I think a skilled editor could have reorganized the book to create a more linear though-line, since it does end up taking the reader in circles at times. The same book with slightly less content and a better organizational structure could have really been dynamite. This is especially important, because I suspect many postpartum mothers will attempt to read this book in fits and starts, a few pages at a time, as they make their way through a day of childcare. Therefore the experience of reading this book could and should be a less effortful one.