A review by melanie_page
Baby and Other Stories by Paula Bomer
5.0
If your first reaction to a book is that you liked it because you related to the characters, I feel like you're not reading diversely enough. I can't relate to the characters in Baby at all. Most of them I didn't like. But Bomer also asks me to be empathetic toward characters who have reached their limits, characters who find themselves attached--for life--to people they never wanted in their lives in the first place, namely children. Other characters expect life to be one way based on their privilege, like the mother in the titular story, and find out that motherhood is ridiculously hard no matter what your economic status.
These stories reminded me of a dark thread I found on Reddit, one that asked members to explain what they would never tell someone else that they experienced--or are still experiencing--during parenthood. Remember, these are real people who are too afraid to share their stories with their real names because they know how society will react.
The one story that sticks with me is about a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy, stuck with it, had the baby, and kept her child for about 7 years. She didn't love her child at all. Everyone told her they would support her and that she would grow to love her daughter, but the mother realized that 7 years was definitely enough, and that by keeping custody of a person she didn't love was damaging to the girl. The custody rights of the child were signed over to the woman's parents, and she went her own way. That story, to me, is heartbreaking from all points of view, but it also captures a different experience that most of us don't want to acknowledge because we start to think it could happen to us. Let's face it, having a baby is risky for 1,001 reasons. I think Bomer gets into the heads of people like that mother from Reddit.
These stories reminded me of a dark thread I found on Reddit, one that asked members to explain what they would never tell someone else that they experienced--or are still experiencing--during parenthood. Remember, these are real people who are too afraid to share their stories with their real names because they know how society will react.
The one story that sticks with me is about a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy, stuck with it, had the baby, and kept her child for about 7 years. She didn't love her child at all. Everyone told her they would support her and that she would grow to love her daughter, but the mother realized that 7 years was definitely enough, and that by keeping custody of a person she didn't love was damaging to the girl. The custody rights of the child were signed over to the woman's parents, and she went her own way. That story, to me, is heartbreaking from all points of view, but it also captures a different experience that most of us don't want to acknowledge because we start to think it could happen to us. Let's face it, having a baby is risky for 1,001 reasons. I think Bomer gets into the heads of people like that mother from Reddit.