crabbygirl reviewed Because I Said So by Kate Moses
Review of 'Because I Said So' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
with a subtitle of 33 mothers write about children, sex, men, aging, faith, race & themselves, i thought would be a great read. sadly, it was simply so-so.
perhaps this duo's (the editors) used the best work for the preceding book - Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenting. anyhow, many of these essays could have been found in a magazine (they were that short) and most had very little to do with my own life. in fact, some were downright grating to me - like the mom who defended her choice to leave not only her husband, but her children as well (she can name it whatever she wishes - i call it abandonment), and the guilt-filled bourgeois mom who kept her nanny even after said nanny refused to …
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
with a subtitle of 33 mothers write about children, sex, men, aging, faith, race & themselves, i thought would be a great read. sadly, it was simply so-so.
perhaps this duo's (the editors) used the best work for the preceding book - Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenting. anyhow, many of these essays could have been found in a magazine (they were that short) and most had very little to do with my own life. in fact, some were downright grating to me - like the mom who defended her choice to leave not only her husband, but her children as well (she can name it whatever she wishes - i call it abandonment), and the guilt-filled bourgeois mom who kept her nanny even after said nanny refused to hand over her child (in distress she ran to the nanny for an alternative result). or the riches-to-rags mother, complaining about welfare while her children are in private school, who bent more than a few rules to get what she wanted.
i most enjoyed the 2 pieces about race and how today's children truly believe the world is colour blind and that mom's reluctant reminders that those invisible barriers can crash down at anytime (contrast a shopkeeper's reaction to the local private schoolgirls spring ritual of 'harmless' shoplifting - is the reaction the same if the girl is black?)