'I just wanted to give her a hug' - mixed views on 'Motherhood' by Sheila Heti
Our book club member, Eleanor, rounds up our discussions of our March pick 'Motherhood' by Sheila Heti
Guest post written by Eleanor Smith
Relatable. Valid. Self-obsessed. Privileged. Just a couple of conflicting Sex Ed Book Club’s ‘one word summaries’ to start off the session, a springboard for our dive into the real crux of Motherhood by Sheila Heti.
Are these the semi-fictional deliberations of a woman dancing over the decision to become a mother, her life finally at the crossroads between very real social pressure to raise children, versus her honest desire for a different future? Or is Motherhood the meandering, navel gazing luxury of a woman who has the money, energy and fertility to write a 284 page book about a single decision?
It should be titled Family, rather than Motherhood
Motherhood covers so much more than one character’s choice on whether to become a mother. It’s about anxiety, depression, family ties, generational trauma, choosing a partner and knowing whether they’re ‘right’, and finally - as the theme that connects it all together - whether having a baby is what the narrator should do. We’re immersed in segmented diary entries, structured around parts of the menstrual cycle (quite literally - the chapters are the phases), constantly thinking about whether she wants to have children.
“Is Motherhood the meandering, navel gazing luxury of a woman who has the money, energy and fertility to write a 284 page book about a single decision?”
As a group, we found it surprising that the book doesn’t cover external factors that might cause you to think twice about having a baby (climate change, financial security, AI disasters - just to name a few modern causes of anguish). All the problems for this character are internal, such as anxiety which, we supposed, reflects the huge pressure on women to carry and raise children. Not fathers, not parents, but women. This does lead to some descriptions that raised our eyebrows, such as comparisons to the relationships of gay men and almost all of her questionable interactions with long-term boyfriend Miles. But ultimately, we’re inside the mind of a person, an individual, and she’s clearly already struggling before being additionally burdened with the pressure to become a mother. We commented on the challenges the character is having with her mental health, which is just compounded by her constant questioning, undermining, and expectations (of herself, and the expectations others put on her) to want children.
If a book is ‘literary’, is it actually just bizarre?
Whilst divided on Motherhood’s impact - whether it’s predominantly relatable or entitled - we seemed in agreement that certain ‘literary’ elements bordered on pretentious, or at least deliberately confusing: coin tossing to answer (seemingly random) rhetorical questions, and leaving knives in the bedroom for four years are just the most obvious examples.
Another of our one word summaries, ‘pseudo-philosophical’, was no doubt born from Heti’s nameless main character’s belief that mothers are the ‘soul of time’, whereas men have permission to occupy ‘space’ in time. We had mixed reactions to this, and mostly we couldn’t work out what she was really referring to. Is she referring to how cis women and people with wombs only have a ‘window of fertility’ (here we discussed that horrible idea of a ‘ticking clock’ when it comes to our ability to have children), covering about three decades? Whereas cis men have their whole lives to exist as themselves? Or is it coming from the sentiment that the entire experience of each living generation is the ‘soul’ of that period in time; we have far more in common with each other than our ancestors or great grandchildren, so why are we so committed to continuing our family line?
Ultimately, and regardless of all the philosophising Heti puts us through in Motherhood, we’re going to be defined by our choice of whether or not to be a mother. We enjoyed Heti’s discussion of the objective fact that there is no superiority of mothers over non-mothers, and vice versa - neither is better than the other. But nonetheless, we’re inhaling expectations from everyone around us, all the time. So how do we challenge that? For Heti’s nameless character, it’s only through time.