Motherhood handbook

You get to feel the ins and outs of her hesitation, her hope and her pain — this character is an open and questioning soul who is honestly looking for answers to, really, unanswerable questions. Questions that many young women are afraid to ask themselves, let alone the people around them. Love it or hate it, this book is going to create a lot of conversation — and that can only be good for the women whose lives are affected by the expectation of motherhood.

View all 21 comments. Oct 13, Canadian Reader rated it liked it Shelves: literary-fiction , autobiographical-fiction , motherhood. In a piece of occasionally self-indulgent and overly long autobiographical fiction, Sheila Heti explores the question of whether or not to have children. Her unnamed narrator, like Heti herself, is a Toronto writer approaching forty with a loudly ticking biological clock. Her boyfriend, Miles, who himself fathered a child when young, is su In a piece of occasionally self-indulgent and overly long autobiographical fiction, Sheila Heti explores the question of whether or not to have children.

Her boyfriend, Miles, who himself fathered a child when young, is supportive of whatever decision she comes to. He is also somewhat contemptuous of the haughty superiority of those who have reproduced and fulfilled the social contract.

She regularly flipped three coins to gain answers to hard questions about her own destiny. And even though her orphaned maternal grandmother, Magda, managed to survive the death camps, marrying the son of a woman she tended to there, she still failed to realize her dreams. A bright, determined woman who pursued first a high-school, then a university education as a mature student, Magda had ambitious plans for a law career. She would die in her early fifties of an distinctly female malady: uterine cancer.

A workaholic pathologist whose primary relationship in life was always with her mother, she is incapable of moving out of intense grief over the loss of that parent. Having immigrated to Canada as a young married woman, she is debilitated by guilt about leaving her ailing mother in the old country. Overwork provides a certain respite, however.

The narrator learned early in life that the women in her family have defined themselves primarily through work, not through motherhood. There is a history, here, of chafing against societal and educational constraints on women. She recalls that as a child she wanted to grow up to be like her mother, who had left the family home and taken her own apartment so that she could focus, free of all distraction, on her medical studies.

As an adult, the narrator intuits that creative work, not motherhood, is the answer for her, as well. Perhaps I can figure out why she is crying, and why I cry, too, and I can heal us both with my words. Interestingly, psychoactive drugs lift the oppressive pall of self-absorption.

The narrator visits her now-retired mother, who has relocated to a spacious, airy home, apparently on the British Columbia Coast.

There, in a bathroom cabinet, she discovers a prescription bottle of antidepressants, and sees that she and her mother have had similar struggles. Yes, Motherhood is overtly an exploration of the question of whether or not to have a child. Finishing it, though, I felt it was just as much an exploration of maternal legacy—in this case, the carrying forward of sadness and familial values about the importance of stimulating or creative work.

View all 10 comments. Oct 13, Thomas rated it really liked it Shelves: own-physical , adult-fiction , feminism.

An insightful, charismatic, deeply felt autobiographical novel that centers on the theme of motherhood. Our protagonist, an unnamed woman in her late thirties, feels pressured to have a child from her friends and from a society that values women based on their capacity to reproduce. This pressure launches our protagonist into a compelling self-exploration about whether she should have children, the emotions and morals surrounding the idea of having a child, for whom she wants to live her life, a An insightful, charismatic, deeply felt autobiographical novel that centers on the theme of motherhood.

This pressure launches our protagonist into a compelling self-exploration about whether she should have children, the emotions and morals surrounding the idea of having a child, for whom she wants to live her life, and more.

I so cherished this book's strong emotional pull. Sheila Heti instills our narrator with such a palpable, relatable angst about her choice to have a child or not. See, for example, this passage about how your friends abandon you to have kids, which connects so much to my feelings about my friends potentially abandoning me and the intimacy of our friendship as we get older: "I had always thought my friends and I were moving into the same land together, a childless land where we would just do a million things together forever.

I thought our minds and souls were all cast the same way, not that they were waiting for the right moment to jump ship, which is how it feels as they abandon me here. I should not think of it as an abandoning, but it would be wrong to say it's not a loss, or that I'm not startled at being so alone. How had I taken all of us as the same? Is that why I started wondering about having kids - because, one by one, the ice floe on which we were all standing was broken and made smaller, leaving me alone on just the tiniest piece of ice, which I had thought would remain vast, like a very large continent on which we'd all stay?

It never occurred to me that I'd be the only one left here. I know I'm not the only one left, yet how can I trust the few who remain, when I'd been so mistaken about the rest? She investigates the idea of motherhood with much emotional and cultural depth, exploring the painful feelings motherhood, or lack thereof, may bring, as well as the joy of not having kids. During the middle section of the book, I came across many passages that made me think "yes, she gets it.

The child would not otherwise miss its life. Nothing harms the earth more than another person - and nothing harms a person more than being born. If I really wanted to have a baby, it would be better to adopt.

Even better would be to give the money I would have spent on raising a child to those organizations that give women who can't afford it condoms and birth control and education and abortions, and so save these women's lives.

That would be a more worthwhile contribution to this world than adding one more troubled person from my own troubled womb. I would definitely not start this book thinking you will receive something that makes much concrete or chronological sense.

Rather, it is a composite of emotions and ideas all tied together in an unconventional yet fitting way. I also wish Heti had applied the same rigor of thought in which she examined motherhood to her relationship with Miles, which felt a bit like a cliche romance. Still, I enjoyed Motherhood a lot. I already know it is a book I will return to as I get older and many succumb to the pressure of having a kid.

This book felt like the more free-flowing, less focused version of the title essay of Rebecca Solnit's masterful collection The Mother of All Questions. The book felt like what I wanted The Art of Waiting to be, too.

Anyway, I will end this review with one last iconic passage: "Besides, there are so many kinds of live to give birth to in this world, apart from a literal human life.

And there are children everywhere, and parents needing help everywhere, and so much work to be done, and lives to be affirmed that are not necessarily the lives we would have chosen, had we started again. The whole world needs to be mothered.

I don't need to invent a brand new life to give the warming effect to my life I imagine mothering will bring. There are lives and duties everywhere just crying out for a mother. That mother could be you. View all 3 comments. Sep 05, Never Without a Book rated it it was ok. I found this book extremely tedious and contrived.

All of the coin flipping and existential questions was dumb. Overall, this seemed too self-focused and pretentious. Yes Are you getting your credit back from audible? Hell YES! Would you recommend this book? View 1 comment. Dec 02, Antoinette rated it did not like it.

This book did absolutely nothing for me. For most of the book, I felt like I was in the author's brain going round and round on a merry go round with no end in sight. To be or not to be a mother, that is the question? Why can't I commit? What is wrong with me? And if I do decide to take the plunge, will it devastate my life?

A woman who is so wrapped up in herself, she cannot see what is staring her in the face. She needs help!! For all the introspection and all that soul searching, the book felt This book did absolutely nothing for me. For all the introspection and all that soul searching, the book felt " clinical" to me.

I felt nothing for her and her dilemma. I read this book for a literary book group. To say I did not like this book would be an understatement.

View all 18 comments. Jan 27, Skyler Autumn rated it really liked it. One of those plotless books that felt almost biographical in its delivery. Motherhood follows our unnamed protagonist as she begins to examine the choice of whether or not to have children. That's it, the entire book. Its a contemplation on parenthood and what it means or doesn't if one chooses to not partake in this so called passage. For most, Motherhood is a stepp 4 Stars Motherhood is less of a plot based novel or even a character study instead I'd classify it as a meditation on Motherhood.

For most, Motherhood is a stepping stone, another checkmark on the to-do list of life. Yet how much thought is truly given towards this absolutely massive, life altering decision? I found this read extraordinarily refreshing especially in a world in which people are getting pregnant without truly examining their decisions and the consequences. It was nice to see for a change the author take such a thorough introspective investigation on whether or not entering Motherhood was the right decision for her protagonist which I'm led to believe is a reflection of her own journey.

I think this book is also very fair towards both sides of the coin. Not biased, just inquisitive despite the outcome it did not judge. Originally I was going to mark this as a 3 star read because although fascinating.

It was repetitive, asked a lot of unanswerable questions, and seemed a bit long at times. BUT as I finished I found that the book lingered with me and I was finding ways to bring it up in daily discussions, debating the topics and questions raised for hours with any poor soul that caught my eye.

Overall I think this novel, should be required reading for anyone considering taking the plunge into parenthood. I think it asks those necessary questions that we ourselves need to answer before we take those permanent steps into Motherhood.

May 21, Leo Robertson rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites. LOVED this one! A hilarious, poignant and honest account of one woman's dithering over what might be the most important decision of her life—but hang on, why HER life and not HIS?

Why important, even? And so on, encapsulating an encyclopaedic collection of questions and considerations on the theme of becoming a mother. It's so funny because I'd assumed these were stupid questions, or questions that surely must be posited and answered in some body of philosophical literature—but is it really the ca LOVED this one! It's so funny because I'd assumed these were stupid questions, or questions that surely must be posited and answered in some body of philosophical literature—but is it really the case that people go ahead and become mothers without knowing their stances on the various issues this book raises?

I highlighted numerous passages that mirrored my own thoughts on being a parent. It made me feel so much better that I wasn't the only one thinking them! For example: people say that once you become a parent, it becomes the best thing you do in life. But I didn't want the things I currently hold as important to pale in importance, lose my ambition for other aspects of life. Of course, that wouldn't matter if something even better came along, but even so I wouldn't want it and may even resent those who don't share the same passion for my pursuits.

Heti bares herself like this on every page with bravery, incisiveness and wit. Not to be missed! This was suuuuuuper depressing. View all 61 comments. Should one have children? Should I have children? Her neurotic inner voice makes her sec Should one have children? Her neurotic inner voice makes her second-guess her life. Her identity as an artist is so precious to her that she is terrified of giving it up, or watering it down, to risk being a not very good?

Yet she has the sense that to remain childless she had better come up with a really good excuse. The cyclical workings of the female body mirror the circularity of her thoughts: she keeps revolving around the same questions, never seeming to get any closer to a decision — though by the end she does decide. The temptation is always to offload the choice onto an external, fate-like force.

The narrator wants the oracular voice of the universe to answer everything for her via coin tosses. Heti writes in a prefatory note that these were based on actual coin tosses. Oh, the absurdity of having a dialogue with an impersonal force! Anything to bypass the wringer of her own mind. She also latches onto the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, and contrasts this with the symbol of a kitchen knife, which represents a demon that robs her of hope.

Her Hungarian grandmother, Magda, survived Auschwitz only to die of cancer at 53; her mother, a doctor, devoted herself to her career and left the traditional household and childrearing tasks to her husband. Deep down, she believes her family line was meant to end in a concentration camp; how dare she continue it now? I marked out dozens of quotes that could have been downloaded directly from my head or copied from my e-mails and journal pages.

Here are a few of my favorite passages. On the other hand, the misery of them. On the one hand, the freedom of not having children. On the other hand, the loss of never having had them—but what is there to lose? In both, too much is missing. What can I say, except: I forgive myself for every time I neglected to take a risk, for all the narrowings and winnowings of my life. I understand that fear beckons to a person as much as possibility does, and even more strongly.

I know I cannot hide from life; that life will give me experiences no matter what I choose. New favourite!

Reading Women Challenge 9. Why was it important for that doctor that I did? There is something at-loose-ends feeling about such a woman. Is that the threat of the woman without kids? Yet the woman without kids is not saying that no woman should have kids …. Other lives should be able to exist alongside our own without any threat or judgment at all. May 14, Ann Campbell rated it it was ok. This book was well reviewed and well written; unfortunately it was hypnotizingly tedious to read.

It was as if the worst, most self-indulgent aspects of a 2am dorm discussion about the meaning of life with nineteen year olds were distilled into a pseudo-novel. It may sound smart in excerpts, but in its full length it just sounds wankerish. The end. Sheila Heti takes pages to autopsy it through a nameless narrator in regards to where she stands as time is running out.

This is, of course, a grand oversimplification of her reasoning. On one hand, she feels abandonment and guilt of not wanting what seems to be the destined path and the thing that brings joy to others. On the other, she fiercely argues her point and stands her ground. Her ambivalent feelings are so honest and raw. There can be sadness at not living out a more universal story--the supposed life cycle--how out of one life cycle another cycle is supposed to come.

But when out of your life, no new cycle comes, what does that feel like? It feels like nothing. Yet there is a bit of a let-down feeling when the great things that happen in the lives of others--you don't actually want those things for yourself. The narrator knows that and ruthlessly searches, turning her insides out. The point of no return is beautifully phrased in many instances. In fact so, that I am reluctant to criticise it because the literary value of it for me - tho above average - was and is beyond the point in this instance.

It was privileged and self-indulgent at times, but a much-needed read still. Jan 14, Michelle Hart rated it liked it. Yet there is a bit of a let-down feeling when the great things that happen in the lives of others--you don't actually want those things for yourself "There is a kind of sadness at not wanting the things that give so many other people their life's meaning. Whether I want a kid is a secret I keep from myself — it is the greatest secret I keep from myself. Motherhood is billed as a novel but reads like a diary; recording all of the uncertainty and changes of heart of Sheila Heti's unnamed narrator like Heti herself, a Toronto-based writer approaching forty as she tries to figure out if she wants to give birth before her unwinding biological clock renders the decision-making process moot.

Being of this certain age, the narrator is surrounded by Whether I want a kid is a secret I keep from myself — it is the greatest secret I keep from myself. Being of this certain age, the narrator is surrounded by friends who are already mothers or struggling with their own uncertainties about having children, and everywhere she goes, people can't help but ask when she's finally going to have a baby or offer up a range of opinions on what she should do with her life.

I honestly don't feel like a childless couple or more pointedly, a childless woman has let the human team down, so nothing resonated with me. And reading a diary-like narrative of someone recording their uncertainty about such a low-impact to me decision, in which it all revolves around I feel, I want, I need , made the narrator seem self-obsessed and tedious. Still, there were bits I liked in this book, and I can certainly acknowledge that there are probably others out there for whom this narrative does resonate: not really for me, maybe for you.

Usual caveat: I read an ARC and quotes used may not be in their final forms. Sometimes I'm convinced that a child will add depth to all things — just bring a background of depth and meaning to whatever it is I do. I also think I might have brain cancer. There's something I can feel in my brain, like a finger pressing down. There's some quirky not-quite-humour and ironic winkery in this book, and I especially liked a device that is introduced early: using three coins for I Ching -like divination, the narrator asks yes or no questions that somehow get to the roots of her deepest thinking.

And also led to some laughs — as in the pictures included that show the various places in her bedroom where she might keep a kitchen knife [as a personification of the demon she needs to ask for a blessing]; did Heti really do this, at the urging of her coins?

I liked the unbalanced feeling of not knowing how real-to-life this book was. I was less keen on meetings with actual fortune-tellers and the constant recounting of dreams, but appreciate how they try to tap into deeper-level thinking. If Motherhood could be said to have a plot at all, it revolves around this nearing-forty-year-old woman, who has enjoyed success as a writer and who is in a longterm committed relationship with what seems like a decent and supportive man: he has a child from a former relationship so our narrator is already a part-time stepmother and he is willing to have a baby with her if she wants.

She is healthy a checkup confirms that she's fertile , she has enough money for her needs, and with a safe and stable life, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to have a baby — if that's what she wants. Even so, she seems to think that being a writer and being a mother is an either-or choice, and she can't decide whether the presumed benefits of motherhood would offset the sacrifice: What is wrong with living your life for a mother, instead of a son or daughter?

There can be nothing wrong in it. If my desire is to write, and for the writing to defend, and for the defence to really live — not just for one day, but for a thousand days, or ten thousand days — that is no less viable a human aspiration than having a child with your mind set on eternity.

Art is eternity backwards. Art is written for one's ancestors, even if those ancestors are elected, like our literary mothers and fathers are. We write for them. Children are eternity forwards. My sense of eternity is backwards through time. The farther back in time I can go, the deeper into eternity I feel I can pierce. An interesting pushback to this philosophy is that the narrator's grandmother survived the Holocaust, and although a nonpractising Jew herself, the narrator wonders if she should feel a duty towards repopulating in the name of those lost.

And yet as an artist: A book lives in every person who reads it. You can't just snuff it out. My grandmother got away from the camps so she could live. I want my grandmother to live in everybody, not just in one body from between my legs. In this way, the narrator goes back and forth — seeing the joys of motherhood after one encounter with a friend, seeing nothing but sacrifice after another — and meanwhile, years pass and she's no closer to a decision; all while that biological clock ticks down.

If the narrator was a person I knew in real life, and every time I met her she gave me her new philosophy on motherhood and her changing desires, I fear I'd find her tiresome and try to avoid her. A book that provides this same one-sided monologue doesn't work much better. But again, another reader in the throes of this situation just might find this fascinating.

Dec 19, Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing. Library Overdrive narrated by Canadian author Sheila Heti. She explores the emphasis society places on motherhood and how women are judged regardless of their decision Who was Sheila asking questions to you might ask? Her spiritual soul And my gosh Sheila Heti is adorable to listen to!!!

Her written words combined with her aesthetically pleasing voice radiates emotion, sincerity, warmth, vulnerability, curiosity, and intelligence I found her totally endearing! When our daughter, Ali, 34, a newly official Canadian resident, married Adam, 37, a born Canadian , almost two years ago, they were clear about not having children. Paul and I are too.

Have them? Want them? Am I worried about no legacy? Ali and Adam have gotten the question dozens of times since marriage too? Kids yet? Ali is an artist. Adam is an artist. Katy, our older daughter, single, 38, is an artist. Sheila explores whether or not being an artist herself - creativity and being a writer, counts as a legacy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book Jun 27, Melissa rated it it was amazing. May 13, Gregory Baird rated it did not like it Shelves: amazon-vine , fiction-literature , abandoned , arc , hated-it , gender , parenthood , fictionalized-reality , booklist.

Warning: if you are not into novels as therapy, this is not the book for you. Finelli, Reverend Mr. We know her so well through her work for families, her website, and her engaging podcasts. Warm, wise, funny, compassionate, faith-filled, and, above all experienced in the joys and struggles of family life, her new book will be a lifesaver to Catholic women who try, hope, and pray to be good moms.

Does your marriage need a tune-up? Does your friendship garden need cultivating? Could your parenting skills use a little remedial attention? This book offers sound advice to help you meet these and other challenges with confidence and grace.

For years, Lisa has been the candle that lights so many others. She also invites those with their own flame of faith to join with her so that more darkness is dispelled. This book is wonderful for Catholic moms and others to experience the Light burning inside as well as around Lisa Hendey.

She is a gift to people of faith and journey. Check out video interviews here.