For a long time, I didn’t realize that my irritation at society’s oppressive prescription for motherhood was anything more than my state of being. This frustration buzzed on the periphery of my awareness so persistently, became a thing so familiar, that I didn’t acknowledge or identify it. When I finally did, it was through literature.
Ann Patchett is one of the most effective novelists today on maternal ambivalence, precisely because she writes compelling, full characters who unapologetically commit to decisions about their own maternity. This distinction from most other novels helped me to see that I was not alone. * In 2013, Ann Patchett gave a reading at Politics & Prose bookstore in my hometown of Washington, DC.
In retrospect, I can see I was at an extremely vulnerable place in my life. I was still finding my feet, following a split from my long-time, mortgage-sharing, dog co-parenting boyfriend. I was in my thirties, single, and had achieved none of the life milestones many of my contemporaries already had.
And then Patchett signed my copy of , adding, “Monica, live a life of wonder.” I went away thinking about how to do that. I had allowed my relationship to limit my choices; I put off grad school at his request, and buried my ambition to be a writer so that I could contribute financially to our lives together.
But in the aftermath of our split, I was only lonely. When I confided this to my stepmother, who was home with my two much younger half-sisters, she .