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Book Review: Your Child at Play: Birth to One Year by Marilyn Segal

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Your Child at Play gives the basics of what to expect from your child developmentally as well as a variety of activites you can do with your child for each month of the first year. It includes hundreds of photos of babies and parents engaging in the suggested activities. It’s simply packed with ideas.

Published in 1998, it’s also super-outdated. The author recommends not a few activities and toys that are no longer recommended because of safety concerns.

I thought it was great. I collected dozens of activities from among the hundreds included and have used them with Tirzah Mae.

That said, I’m not sure whether other moms would find this helpful. My observation has been that many moms feel insecure in their ability to wade through the waters of “developmental appropriateness” and “child safety” and choose one of two ways of dealing with that. Either they choose an expert that they trust implicitly and follow everything that expert says to the T (Babywise or Dr. Sears devotees, anyone?) or they are just simply terrified of everything and parent by taboos (I can’t let my child out of my sight, my child should never encounter a string or ribbon, I can’t let my baby roll onto her tummy in her sleep, etc.)

This book would not be helpful to either type of parents. The terrified-of-everything parents will become terrified quickly and have nightmares of all the terrible things that could happen to parents who try stuff from this book. And the expert-trusting parents will have to endure the censure of terrified parents – and may put their child at risk if they leave him unsupervised to play with the toys made on the books recommendation (or to engage in the activities the book suggests.) On the other hand, it’s highly unlikely that a child could be hurt while engaging in these activities under supervision.

So, should you read this book?

Judge for yourself. Are you looking for ideas for activities to do with your infant? Do you have the time and energy to be discerning about which activities to try? Do you have easy access to this book via a library or can you find it cheaply at a used store? Then go for it.

If not, may I recommend Retro Baby by Anne Zachry? It’s got a lot of similar activity ideas, but is more up-to-date as far as safety recommendations go.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Infant Play activities
Synopsis: A month-by-month listing of activities you can do with your baby in his first year of life
Recommendation: Lots of nice suggestions, but safety recommendations have changed since this is written, so parents will have to be discerning.

Categories Reading My Library

Arthur’s Mean [Fill-in-the-blank]

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“Oh, I love the Arthur books,” the new check-out girl at the library raved. “They’re such fun!”

I smiled politely and remained silent as she checked out my monthly half-dozen children’s picture books.

I am at that point in my read-every-book challenge where I’m yet again reading a massive children’s picture book series that I don’t particularly like.

This time, it’s Marc Brown’s Arthur.

Apart from the fact that it’s a massive series and that it’s repetitive and that the stories aren’t particularly interesting, what bugs me about Marc Brown’s Arthur series is how many meanies there are.

Almost every book includes some form of sibling rivalry, classroom taunting, or other mild bullying (although I fear to use that word, given the current anti-bullying craze.)

I understand the point. Teasing happens. Bullying happens. Brown wants to portray child life as it is, give children something to identify with. Furthermore, he probably wants kids to develop empathy with Arthur (frequently the recipient of the teasing) and hopefully to learn that it isn’t nice to bully and taunt. All understandable and noble goals.

But, while I can’t remember exactly where I read it (maybe Nurture Shock?), I remember reading that such attempts generally backfire. Rather than producing empathy and encouraging children to avoid taunting, hearing stories about children being teased only adds to a child’s arsenal of ways to pick on other children. Children don’t come up with “four-eyes” on their own – they hear it on a television show or read about it in Arthur’s Eyes. And when they hear about it, they don’t file it away as “something I wouldn’t like to be called” – they file it away as “something to throw at my glasses-wearing-classmate next time I feel like being superior.”

So what kind of stories would I prefer?

I’d prefer stories that focus on kids banding together to overcome obstacles and fight real bad guys – bad guys so scary they’d never want to be them. I prefer the fairy tale version of life, where children must be smart and slay dragons instead of each other.

What do you think of Arthur? Do you have any favorite children’s picture book series?

Categories Books

Puzzling over True Love

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A sibling bought me a Thomas Kincade puzzle for Christmas one year. It was a 1000 piece puzzle depicting scenes from “Gone with the Wind”.

Daniel and I started working on the puzzle earlier this year when I complained that we were defaulting to the television for our time together.

We worked on the puzzle a couple evenings, and it’s been on the living room table ever since – slowly being buried under mail, then uncovered, then buried again, then uncovered. I’ve worked on it intermittently, but it’s taken much longer than my usual cheapo 500 piece puzzles from the dollar store.

Well, I finally finished it this week.

And am I glad I did – because until it was finished and put away, I couldn’t keep my mind from puzzling over the little note from the artist on the back of the box.

Kincade wrote:

“My painting is populated with favorite film characters and rendered in small cinematic vignettes designed to capture all the drama and nostalgia of this Hollywood spectacular. I truly hope this painting delights all fans of GONE WITH THE WIND. Beyond this, I pray it reminds us all that true love does exist.”

That last part gets me. I don’t get it.

How does Gone with the Wind remind us that true love exists?

I think back over when I read it a few years back, puzzling over each dysfunctional relationship. Scarlett and Ashley. Melanie and Ashley. Scarlett and Charles. Scarlett and Frank. Scarlett and Rhett.

But surely Kincade doesn’t think Scarlett and Rhett embody true love?

The only potential example of true love I can see in Gone with the Wind is Scarlett’s love for herself.

Unless the movie is that different from the book.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

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Is The Little Prince a children’s book? It’s the question I’ve been asking myself since reading it for the first time a couple weeks ago. It’s the question I’m still asking myself.

It definitely appears to be a children’s book. It’s short in length, it includes integral illustrations. The main character is a “little” prince, apparently a child, who has a hard time understanding adults. The narrator is an adult, but even he considers other adults to be unperceptive and out of touch with what’s important.

But the book seems deep, way too deep to be a children’s book. It is full of deep thoughts, potential symbols, possible layers of meaning.

So is it a children’s book?

I don’t know, but I’m going to treat it as though it is.

Because The Little Prince seems determined to contradict the idea that big ideas and deep thoughts are the purview of adults. In fact, The Little Prince almost certainly proclaims that adults have got the world all wrong.

The story opens with the narrator telling of, when he was a boy, drawing a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. He showed his drawing to adults but they never understood it, since they saw only a dark outline, not comprehending the elephant within. The narrator explains that “Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.” The narrator started using this drawing as a test of sorts, to see whether people were perceptive or not. Of course, the grownups never were, and so he would bring himself down to the adult’s level, speaking of bridge and golf and politics and neckties.

But after the narrator crashes his plane in the Sahara, he meets a little prince who has the perception to recognize a sheep inside a sketched box. Slowly, the narrator learns the little prince’s story – how he hails from a tiny planet which he carefully tends, how he has traveled through the universe, how he has tamed a fox and been tamed by a rose.

And as we read the little prince’s tale, we learn with him the foolishness of kings pretending to be absolute, of conceited men in their self-admiration, of drunkards drinking to forget their shame, of businessmen so occupied with money that they cannot enjoy life, of workers so busy with work that they never rest, of scholars whose self-importance prevents them from ever actually learning. We learn that everyone and everything is limited in perspective, seeing only what he will and what he can. We learn that relationships are what make life meaningful, that relationships require work. We learn that relationships can cause deep pain, but are also a source of great joy.

We learn, along with the little prince and his new friend, that life does not consist in its outer trappings, in power or position or prestige. Life consists of inner quality, of care for others, of loving and being loved.

And this is why I love this simple and complex little book with its simple and complex little prince.

It is a children’s book, yet not a children’s book – reminding us what really matters.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Children’s (?) fantasy
Synopsis: A pilot meets a little prince after a crash in the Sahara – and learns great lessons from the little prince’s intergalactic travels.
Recommendation: Absolutely worth reading.

This was Amy’s pick for the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub this month – Check out what others are saying about this book.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday? by Laura Bennett

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Laura Bennett is (apparently) best known as a contestant on “Project Runway” – I wouldn’t know since I’ve never seen that show and had never heard of Bennett until I started reading her book. But while Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday? does spend a chapter detailing Bennett’s “Project Runway” experience, the book is really about the adventures of raising six kids in New York City.

Now, if you started to think that this was a book of parenting tips from an experienced parent, you’d be absolutely wrong. Even if she had tried to give advice (which she thankfully doesn’t), you wouldn’t want to take it. Laura Bennett isn’t a professional mommy like New York is rumored to be teaming with (which is a mark in her favor). But neither is she a free-range mom or some other sensible variant. No, Laura’s parenting could be best described as… Well, come to think of it, I have no idea how to describe her parenting – except to maybe say that she doesn’t parent. At least, not in the way you or I think of parenting.

She doesn’t watch her kids, feed her kids, or clean up after her kids. Those tasks are relegated to the two nannies (a morning and an afternoon nanny), the (weekend) “manny”, and her husband’s housekeeper. She doesn’t intentionally teach or discipline her children. She apparently makes no rules for her children, exercises little decision making over their activities (apart from making sure that each child has an activity that they’re into and helping pay the bills for the accompanying classes, camps, etc.), and otherwise does little that I think of as motherly oversight. Well, she does attend their class plays and helps out with homework assignments that involve hot glue guns.

Maybe I’m too harsh on Bennett. Probably I’m too harsh on Bennett. The reality is that raising six kids in the city is very different than raising six kids in the suburbs. As Bennett points out, simply ferrying the kids to and from school and to activities (which are necessary because there’s no yard to send them into) is practically a full time job. And raising six kids in a loft appartment is very different than raising six kids in a suburban ranch. And raising six kids when you have a career is different than raising six kids as a full-time homemaker. This is true. Bennett’s reality is very different than the environment in which I was raised or the environment in which I am raising my own daughter.

But Bennett doesn’t try too hard to get me to identify with her, mentioning her Manolos again and again, complaining about cold or wet weather, or talking of the torture of three weeks with her children at home AND her M/nannies gone.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this recital of crazy anecdotes about her family, reading with the same fascination I’d feel towards monkeys gamboling about in the zoo. She thought she’d just burn the Christmas tree after Christmas! In their living room! Still in the stand! She taught her child that “bitch” was a feminine term and “bastard” a male – so he could correct the troublemaker who called him a “bitch”! She went with her (now) husband on a safari to Kenya as their second date!

She’s insane.

She’s also funny, if you can get past the crudeness.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Parenting memoir/humor
Synopsis: Bennett tells about her crazy life, raising six kids in New York City.
Recommendation: Probably not worth seeking out.

Categories Read Aloud Thursday

Read Aloud Thursday (June 2015)

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We’ve been reading to Tirzah Mae since she’s been born, but even now she still isn’t tremendously interested in paying attention while we’re reading.

Erm… she’s not tremendously interested in paying attention while *I* am reading.

Papa was quite capable of keeping her entertained by reading The Wind and the Willows to her, complete with distinct snuffly mole and rat voices, while I was making dinner one night. I can already hear our children’s voices down the line, “Why don’t you read it like Papa does?”, to which I will be forced to reply that I simply haven’t the skill Papa does.

Tirzah Mae and I read board books checked out of the library.

Baby Shine A Tiger Tales Book

Baby Shine

I thought this the biggest dud of all the books we checked out at the end of last month – pages contain a single word with a graphic or two, all in white, black, blue, green and metallic green. The words have little to do with one another, the book has no apparent theme except its color scheme.

But Tirzah Mae loved it. The metallic green caught her eye and fascinated her, especially when our distorted reflections showed up on its smooth surface. Go figure.

Opposites by Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith's Opposites

This was a smaller-than-usual board book with one or two pairs of “opposite” illustrations (and the corresponding “opposite” words) on each double page spread. Wildsmith is known for his nature illustrations, and these are delightful. In addition to the opposite words, there are plenty of things to point out – many different animals to name, certain animal behaviors to point out as normative (two young tigers wrestling) or as NOT (a pelican with a hippopotamus in his bill).

I will probably be checking this one out again when Tirzah Mae is older – I think she’ll enjoy it better when she can understand what we’re talking about. For now, the muted colors of the illustrations mean she frequently looks away while I’m reading.

Hide and Seek Harry at the Beach by Kenny Harrison

Hide and Seek Harry at the Beach

A plot. Oh how I enjoy a plot, however simple!

Harry is a hippo, playing hide and go seek with his human friends at the beach. Being quite large, he never quite manages to hide completely (just as many toddlers and preschoolers have a hard time hiding themselves completely) – so he’s easy to spot.

Toddlers will no doubt enjoy the gentle silliness of this tale; and moms can also point out the various beachside gear found within the pages. Tirzah Mae, of course, was not quite so amused as a slightly older child would be.

Clare Beaton’s Nursery Rhymes

Hide and Seek Harry at the Beach

Familiar and unfamiliar rhymes, one to a double paged spread, are accompanied by lovely appliqued and embroidered illustrations. I loved the illustrations (if I had the time and energy, as well as fewer projects already in my queue, I’d stitch up some similar pieces to ornament the nursery walls.) Tirzah Mae loved the cadence of the nursery rhymes (and that I played “This Little Piggy” on her toes when we got to that rhyme – one of her favorite games.)

Baby Loves to Boogie! by Wednesday Kirwan

Baby Loves to Boogie

This psychedelically colored book asks the question “Who likes to boogie?” before introducing a variety of animals who love to do a variety of dances (apes that orang-o-tango, moles who “dig it”). I enjoy dancing and think puns are fun, so I thought this was terrific. Tirzah Mae loves it when her mama rocks her about or dances with her, and enjoyed it when I drew out the “WHOOO likes to boogie” while squeezing her tight. Of course, we learn at the end that BABY likes to boogie.

For us, this book is just right. I find it enjoyable, Tirzah Mae finds it enjoyable, and it has just enough potential to keep it interesting as Tirzah Mae grows (learning about all the different animals, naming the different background colors on every page, learning about and maybe even doing each of the different dances – EELectric slide, anyone?)

Check out what other families are reading aloud at Read Aloud Thursday at Hope is the Word.

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (June 2015)

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It’s been a decent month for reading and an excellent month for reviewing. I can’t remember a time when I’ve reviewed such a large proportion of the books on my Nightstand post. I’m going to blame my new scheduling/to-do system, which starts to make me think I’m getting a hang on this stay-at-home-helpmate/housewife/mothering gig. (Knock on wood :-P)

Fiction read this month:

  • The Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson
    Some kids from church recommended the author to me – and, while this book wasn’t spectacular, it was a clean fun adventure. Read my full review here.
  • The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan
    Newly minted Ranger Will is off to his first assignment – but he quickly needs to switch gears (and clothes!) His new mission is to find out all he can about the alleged sorcerer in a northern fief – while disguised as a jongleur. This book drew me in quickly, as all of the Ranger’s Apprentice series have. Unfortunately, it ended on a cliff-hanger when my library wasn’t open for me to get the next book!
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry
    An absolutely delightful little book, complete with the author’s original illustrations. This was Amy’s pick for the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub this month – I’m looking forward to discussing it in the upcoming week.
  • 4 picture books author last name BROWN
  • 5 board books by various authors

Nonfiction read this month:

Books about Pregnancy, Birth, and Childrearing:

  • Vaginal Birth after Cesarean by Elizabeth Kaufmann
    Unhelpful. The author has a chip on her shoulder regarding her own VBAC, which she agreed to reluctantly and was not pleased with. But even beyond that, the circumstances against which the author rages no longer exist in our current medical system. Read my full review here.
  • Bouncing Back after Your Pregnancy by Glade Curtis and Judith Schuler
    I wish I could recommend this, as it is the best laid out of all the post-pregnancy books I’ve read. Unfortunately, it’s filled with misinformation. Read my full review here.
  • Sleep: The Brazelton Way by T. Berry Brazelton and Joshua D. Sparrow
    Gives a general idea of baby and child sleep patterns and specific advice for a variety of sleep issues. I wouldn’t recommend trying to follow Brazelton’s advice to a T, but it could be helpful as a collection of tips. You can read my full review here.
  • Getting Your Child to Sleep…and Back to Sleep by Vicki Lansky
    Lots of potential tips, but be aware that the author has a definite “children need to cry to learn to self-soothe” bent. Also, the first chapter is an absolute modge podge (including advice to “set your TV for Sesame Street that a small child can turn on alone” as a solution to waking up early) deceptively titled “Newborn Sleep Patterns”.
  • Didn’t I feed You Yesterday? by Laura Bennett
    Former “Project Runway” contestant writes about raising 6 children in New York City. She doesn’t give advice (and if she did, you wouldn’t want it – she’s admirable in not being a helicopter mom, not worth emulating because, well, she doesn’t make any effort to train her kids at all.) But it is a very funny book if you can get past the crudeness. Full review coming soon.

Books about Christmas:

  • Christmas in Australia by World Book
    Because it’s starting to feel like Australian Christmas in Kansas :-)
  • American Country Christmas by Mary Ellisor Emmerling
    Lots of pictures of country-style decorating accompanied by bits of old-fashioned poetry about Christmas. Fun to peruse, wouldn’t want to own.

Other nonfiction:

  • Nesting: It’s a Chick Thing by Ame Mahler Beanland & Emily Miles Terry
    Homemaking anecdotes and ideas from a variety of women – with a particular emphasis on female friendships. I didn’t particularly like it, probably because I don’t have that kind of female friendships at present. Read my full review here.
  • Horrible History: France by Terry Deary
    A collection of gruesome trivia from France’s history through the eighteenth century. I think a preteen boy would probably like this a fair bit, but I had some reservations about using it as part of a history curriculum. Read my full review here.

Abandoned:

  • The Hole We’re In by Gabrielle Zevin
    I enjoyed The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, so I thought I’d pick up the other adult novel my library had by Zevin. But I abandoned it after 70 pages (per Nancy Pearl’s guidelines in Book Lust :-) and my own “Read Every Book in my local library” rules). Those 70 pages started with a man making a major decision for his family (with significant cost to his wife) without even talking with his wife. Then he kept secrets from his wife, who in turn keeps secrets from her husband. Surprisingly (NOT!), there’s an affair before page 70. The couple’s children add to the hidden drama – the high schooler is secretly dating a black kid, even though she knows her parents wouldn’t approve. The older daughter is planning her wedding despite secretly hating her fiancee. Oh, and did I mention that this family is made up of “conservative Christians”? Yeah, it was definitely worth quitting.
  • Quick Food: Gourmet Recipes in Just 30 minutes by Jenny Fanshaw and Annette Forrest
    I flagged a dozen or so recipes (out of more than 300) but only ended up making one, which was so-so. The food was just a little too frou-frou for everyday eating (even if it’s quick to make.)

Reviewed from last month’s nightstand:
I don’t usually go backwards – but I had several books that I read last month but hadn’t reviewed or written up notes on as of the last Nightstand post

At the beginning of the year, I set up some forward-dated library holds for the books on the Reading to Know Classics book club list. Come the middle of the month, a little after the request comes active, I get a notice that such-and-such a book is on hold for me now. This month, I hadn’t received a notice as of Sunday and started to get worried that I wouldn’t get my book in time. I began to contemplate actually going to Carrie’s blog and figuring out which book I needed to get so I could get it by another route – and then I remembered. Next month is July – which means WE’RE GOING TO NARNIA! (And also means I have no need to go to the library to get a copy – I have at least two copies of the series here at home.) If you haven’t already made plans for July (and even if you have), may I suggest that you visit Narnia as well?

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Bouncing Back after Your Pregnancy by Glade B. Curtis and Judith Schuler

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Of all the books on postpartum issues that I have read so far, Bouncing Back After Your Pregnancy is the most comprehensive and well-organized. Topics flow from immediate issues to infant feeding to maternal nutrition and exercise to marriage and family topics to returning to work and planning your next pregnancy. I’d love to be able to recommend this book.

Unfortunately, the content is simply ridiculous and filled with misinformation. Episiotomies are assumed and, to read the chapters on immediate postpartum care, you’d think the episiotomy is really the most important part of childbirth (before and after). The exercises in the exercise chapter are laughable – some aren’t really much by way of exercise and several list the wrong muscle groups as the ones being exercised. No distinctions are made between strength exercises and stretching and no attention is given to grouping exercises into any logical pattern. And the breastfeeding advice…

Let’s just say the authors probably couldn’t be more anti-breastfeeding if they tried.

Bottle-feeding is listed first in the infant feeding chapter and great pains are taken to list every possible advantage of bottlefeeding and to minimize any possible disadvantage you might have heard. Once the authors get around to discussing breastfeeding, a bold section heading offers “disadvantages to breastfeeding”. Almost every bit of breastfeeding advice is given as a blanket statement that assumes breastfeeding is uncomfortable, messy, and inconvenient. Mothers are educated on “warning signs” in a breastfed baby – but not told what signs suggest that breastfeeding is going well. The authors only recommed breastfeeding for six months and reassure moms that the majority of mothers don’t go that long.

Bad breastfeeding advice and attitudes aren’t limited to the breastfeeding chapter. In the chapter on nutrition, mothers are given lists of foods not to eat while breastfeeding (actually, most breastfeeding babies will grow and thrive even if their mothers make NO changes at all to their diet – even if the mother is eating unhealthfully in the first place.) The chapter on returning to work mentions the possibility of pumping and gives a little advice, but the advice is incomplete and doesn’t offer any middle ground. Yes, I’d rather a baby get only breastmilk, even while his mom’s at work – but feeding formula while you’re away and breastfeeding at the breast when you’re with baby is better than weaning completely, and is TOTALLY doable (I’ve seen dozens of women, mostly Hispanic, who have very good success with this.)

So no, I can’t recommend this book. I’ve focused on the breastfeeding issues mostly because that is an area in which I have expertise, but the problems with the breastfeeding advice are just an example of the poor research and rampant misinformation found within this book.

I do NOT recommend Bouncing Back after Your Pregnancy.

Rating: 0 stars
Category: Postpartum health
Synopsis: A look at issues facing postpartum moms.
Recommendation: Full of misinformation. Not recommended.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Horrible Histories: France by Terry Deary

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Daniel heard Mike Duncan (a history podcaster who we both enjoy) mention this book as a child’s introduction to the French Revolution – so he requested it via interlibrary loan to review as a potential homeschool resource. Of course, that meant that I would review it as a potential homeschool resource – both since I would likely be the one using it and because I’m the one with more time for reading.

Horrible Histories: France delights in retelling all the, well, horrible things in France’s history through the nineteenth century. As such, it details not a few novel means of torturing and executing enemies, ridiculous and disgusting ways to cure diseases, and as many “potty” kings as possible. Yes, “potty” aka “mad” aka “crazy”. This is a British book, and includes not a few British colloquialisms.

Horrible Histories intersperses time-based chapters “Murky Middle Ages” and “Savage Seventeenth Century” with categorical chapters like “Kurious kings” and “Awful for Animals”. The majority of the chapters, up until the “Savage Seventeenth Century” are made up of anecdotes and trivia, such that I had a hard time placing the anecdotes within any historical context or meta-narrative. This, I think is the primary weakness of this book as a homeschool resource.

On the other hand, as Daniel pointed out when I discussed the book with him, many youngsters enter the world of history as lovers of trivia – and later go on to develop a thirst for the greater narrative (as he himself did.) This is very true. I can see a preteen boy loving the grotesque trivia, as well as the many little quizzes (not over the material, as if to test knowledge, but in order to impart information through a guessing game) and cartoons found throughout.

I don’t think I would deliberately put this book into a preteens hands, in part because its format isn’t my own favorite way of receiving information and in part because of the rather snotty attitude it has towards parents and teachers. That said, if I had a child who got interested in history and picked this up at the library, I doubt I would dissuade him from reading it. (Of course, if he started copping that sort of attitude toward me? We’d be having a little talk about the divine right of mothers.)

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Middle Grade History
Synopsis: A catalog of every gross or awful anecdote you can think of from France’s history through the eighteenth century.
Recommendation: I wouldn’t seek it out, but I also wouldn’t keep my child from reading it if he found it on his own.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Cut, Stapled, and Mended by Roanna Rosewood

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The first chapter includes a sex scene, bodily possession, and a token reference to “a woman’s right to choose”. So I think it’s safe to say that Roanna Rosewood and I have very different philosophies of life.

The rest of this VBAC memoir confirmed that. From the beginning I was inclined to not like Rosewood very much. I felt somewhat heartened when she told the reader that though she’d been raised in the mystic spirituality of the hippy 60’s, she had considered it useless as an adult – but she quickly found that particular brand of spirituality again. Rosewood also has a antipathy towards doctors that transferred from her hippy heritage – one that I don’t share (I’m squarely in the Western medical establishment – I just believe that for the majority of cases, childbirth is not a medical event.) Furthermore, Rosewood has a complete lack of discernment regarding alternate practitioners.

The short of Rosewood’s story is that she intended to have a homebirth but didn’t prepare her body at all because childbirth is natural and why did she need to learn about it? Her waters broke to start labor, but then labor piddled around for days until her midwife insisted that she did indeed need to go to the hospital. There, she received a c-section. She felt great failure, didn’t bond with her baby, etc. etc. I felt like she set herself up for what she got.

Determined to have a home VBAC, Rosewood threw herself into physical preparation and childbirth education. She learned the stats and became one of those annoying VBAC proponents (yes, I say this with tongue in cheek). She actually learned about the stages of labor and management techniques this time around. She walked like her midwife encouraged her to so she could have some strength and stamina when labor rolled around. And she engaged in every quack therapy you can think of (and some you can’t think of).

Her second labor followed the first’s example, and she ended up with a second c-section. This one was better, because she knew what to expect and had done some things to prepare. She had skin to skin, got started breastfeeding more quickly, etc. But it was still failure.

She didn’t plan to get pregnant the third time, it was an accident born of “goddess sex”. And she didn’t plan on keeping the baby, she just kept putting off taking the Plan B her doctor had prescribed. What she did plan was a home birth, acting expressly against the policy of the OB she was also seeing, in case she needed to deliver in the hospital. This pregnancy actually seemed more medically risky – she bled clots early on and had various other scary signs – but this time she did some inner work in addition to the physical stuff. She discovered that she was a bitter woman who pushed other women away, that she had never learned how to relax and just be, etc. So she went on a voyage of emotional and relational discovery (including a “goddess week” in Hawaii). Then she had a successful home birth when her inner goddess pushed for her.

I don’t recommend this story. Rosewood is a flake. Both her methods and her beliefs are highly suspect.

Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a takeaway. The truth is, childbirth isn’t simply a physical thing. A woman’s mind and emotions do impact the progression of labor – and it’s important to not ignore that. Relationship with your labor support is important. Having a goal beyond “not failing again” is important.

That said, there are many differences between Rosewood’s sections and mine. I do not feel my c-section was a failure. It was not forced on me, I chose it. While Rosewood experienced a very difficult labor after premature rupture of membranes, I never went into labor. Rosewood’s initial experience of premature rupture of membranes followed by stop and go labor was repeated in each of her pregnancies. At present, I have never gone through labor and have no reason to expect that my labor should not proceed normally.

I will be preparing for my first labor and delivery, which just happens to be after a c-section. Rosewood was trying to correct what she’d done wrong in her first labor and delivery in order to avoid the undesirable outcome she had. It’s a very different experience – and one that causes us to have very different mindsets from the outset.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Childbirth memoir
Synopsis: Rosewood tries for a home VBAC twice – and learns that childbirth isn’t just physical.
Recommendation: I don’t recommend it.