A review by k_gregz
Mommy Burnout: How Addressing Yours Will Make You a Better Mother and Create a Better Life for Your Children by Sheryl Gonzalez-Ziegler

informative medium-paced

2.5

I did not gain much insight from this book. The main point seems to be: are you burnt out? Well, stop it by doing very obvious things we all wish we could do--schedule more date nights, see your friends more, don't multitask or mix work and home. ... Okay... How? With what childcare? With what time? There's weird recurring judgments of moms for doing basic things like eating junk food (the horror) that seems to just add on guilt where I had none. There's an assumption that if moms are burnt out it's because we're Doing Too Much and not because we're raising kids in a late stage Capitalist hell scape with little social supports for parents and children. So many of the chapter anecdotes were forced into her framework to push this basic message. The most egregious was the chapter about the rich mom with violent and bullying sons who always made excuses for them and was obsessed with getting them into the best colleges. What was a story about a privileged mom making horrible excuses for her privileged sons rather than letting their own actions have consequences became a lesson about moms wanting the best too much? I also hated how much the word mommy was used. Find "mommy friends," take "mommy time." It seemed infantilizing. Finally, the gender ideology seemed more of the era of "men are from mars, women are from Venus" than from this decade.