I’m on a roll with the parenting books. After devouring David Walsh’s “No: Why Kids Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It,” I moved on to Caitlin Flanagan’s “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.” 

Clearly, I’m not the only one driven to distraction by Flanagan’s inconsistencies (Here’s a review on Slate and another on Salon.com). She calls herself a stay-at-home mom but she’s working on a novel and her lot includes a trio of maid, nanny and therapist. She reminisces dreamily of the era when women ruled the home and didn’t yearn for more, but she also writes movingly of the day her own homemaker mother decided she’d had enough, dusted off her nursing degree and went out and got a job, abandoning Flanagan, then 9, to a life of latchkey-dom.

She admits to never changing a sheet - the maid does it - but also to hiring a clutter consultant in a fruitless quest to attain a Martha Stewart aesthetic. Flanagan’s book is often lumped together with those in the feminist backlash genre - her disdain for Betty Friedan is quite evident - but she also admits to playing both sides: she’s equally adept at whispering cattily with the stay-at-home moms about the working moms, and vice versa.

Sound like someone you wouldn’t spend five minutes with, much less an entire book? Well, it’s true Flanagan never tells you much you don’t already know. And she jumps in crazy trajectories from whatever interests her - Mary Poppins, the Kennedys, Real Simple mag, modern wedding mania - to whatever happens to interest her next. But you’ve probably never heard it told quite so entertainingly.

The most shocking thing here is how likeable she is, despite some unlikeable things she says. By the end, I’d forgotten most of my irritation and was left with just this warm realization: motherhood is full of contradictions, and we don’t all have to agree. To hell with all that….beg, borrow or steal this book!

Note: This book and many others, along with monthly stacks of glossy mags - “Parents,” “Working Mother,” “Babytalk,” etc. - come by my desk thanks to H.J. Cummins, the Strib’s Work & Life columnist. The most unexpected so far: “Postpartum Depression For Dummies,” which H.J. adorned with a Post It proclaiming: “What an insensitive title!”

Read any parenting/baby books lately that shored you up or drove you round the bend? Do share…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Books, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.