A review by alisun
That Kind of Mother, by Rumaan Alam
5.0
I loved this book. I was hesitant wondering why a man would write a book about motherhood but Alam offers a textured view of motherhood as well as a commentary on caregiving and domestic labor.
Rebecca Stone has just had a child and is struggling to settle into her new role. In the hospital she meets Priscilla, a Black nurses' assistant. It isn't actually clear what Priscilla's job is. Her daughter is a nurse at the hospital and we later find out that she got her mother this job. What's clear is that she is good with babies (something Rebecca is not). Rebecca convinces Priscilla to come and work for the family as a nanny. Through the three years that Priscilla works for the family, Rebecca settles into her role as a mother, guided entirely by Priscilla. Rebecca has a mother who lives close by and two sisters who also have children but it is her paid nanny that coaches her through first foods and first steps.
Ostensibly Priscilla is there to allow Rebecca to work and, while she does spend time in her office writing poems, initially she really just needs time away from the baby and the demands of motherhood. Later in the story Rebecca's career takes off but this is NOT a working mom needs a nanny because the dad's at work.
When Priscilla becomes pregnant and then dies in childbirth, Rebecca takes the baby home, at first to give Priscilla's adult daughter (nurse Cheryl), who has just had her own child (first baby), time to figure out what to do. It is assumed that Cheryl will be take her brother in and raise him alongside his cousin. It is not a surprise to anyone when Rebecca adopts Andrew and the two families become intwined, making a new (albeit odd) extended family. In the years that follow Rebecca becomes known as a poet -- wins a few prestigious awards -- but really what she becomes is a mother. In fact, it isn't until she is a single working mother (her marriage ends when Andrew is starting school) that she really "becomes" a poet. Her relationship to work and motherhood subtly unfolds and, I think, was one of the more interesting aspects of the book.
In Rebecca, Alam doesn't offer a heroic White savior (thankfully), and things aren't wrapped up nicely in the end. Rebecca is pretty clueless when it comes to race and class. This begins at the beginning (she is blind-sighted when Priscilla becomes pregnant and spend a hot second reflecting on how she didn't know much about Priscilla's private life). One of the best scenes in the book is when Cheryl (the adult sister of Andrew and Cheryl's husband explain "the talk" that Black parents have with their children. Rebecca tries to understand but mostly gets it wrong. Through Cheryl, the reader gets to have a removed view of Rebecca's cluelessness. Cheryl isn't very hard on Rebecca but she doesn't let her off the hook either. That said, when Rebecca is called in to have a chat with Andrew's teacher she is able to call out the teachers' racism and defend her son mama-bear style. This is part of what makes the book so good -- the unresolved and imperfect ways that Rebecca is "that kind of mother."
Rebecca Stone has just had a child and is struggling to settle into her new role. In the hospital she meets Priscilla, a Black nurses' assistant. It isn't actually clear what Priscilla's job is. Her daughter is a nurse at the hospital and we later find out that she got her mother this job. What's clear is that she is good with babies (something Rebecca is not). Rebecca convinces Priscilla to come and work for the family as a nanny. Through the three years that Priscilla works for the family, Rebecca settles into her role as a mother, guided entirely by Priscilla. Rebecca has a mother who lives close by and two sisters who also have children but it is her paid nanny that coaches her through first foods and first steps.
Ostensibly Priscilla is there to allow Rebecca to work and, while she does spend time in her office writing poems, initially she really just needs time away from the baby and the demands of motherhood. Later in the story Rebecca's career takes off but this is NOT a working mom needs a nanny because the dad's at work.
When Priscilla becomes pregnant and then dies in childbirth, Rebecca takes the baby home, at first to give Priscilla's adult daughter (nurse Cheryl), who has just had her own child (first baby), time to figure out what to do. It is assumed that Cheryl will be take her brother in and raise him alongside his cousin. It is not a surprise to anyone when Rebecca adopts Andrew and the two families become intwined, making a new (albeit odd) extended family. In the years that follow Rebecca becomes known as a poet -- wins a few prestigious awards -- but really what she becomes is a mother. In fact, it isn't until she is a single working mother (her marriage ends when Andrew is starting school) that she really "becomes" a poet. Her relationship to work and motherhood subtly unfolds and, I think, was one of the more interesting aspects of the book.
In Rebecca, Alam doesn't offer a heroic White savior (thankfully), and things aren't wrapped up nicely in the end. Rebecca is pretty clueless when it comes to race and class. This begins at the beginning (she is blind-sighted when Priscilla becomes pregnant and spend a hot second reflecting on how she didn't know much about Priscilla's private life). One of the best scenes in the book is when Cheryl (the adult sister of Andrew and Cheryl's husband explain "the talk" that Black parents have with their children. Rebecca tries to understand but mostly gets it wrong. Through Cheryl, the reader gets to have a removed view of Rebecca's cluelessness. Cheryl isn't very hard on Rebecca but she doesn't let her off the hook either. That said, when Rebecca is called in to have a chat with Andrew's teacher she is able to call out the teachers' racism and defend her son mama-bear style. This is part of what makes the book so good -- the unresolved and imperfect ways that Rebecca is "that kind of mother."