Book In Review

      Wow this book, Not Becoming My Mother, was a difficult book for me to read.  It was written by Ruth Reichl.  The reason that the book was difficult for me to read was that it was such a painful subject; it was a clashing of the child’s understanding of her mother as a person, giving way to the adult woman’s understanding of who her mother really was.  As a child, Ruth was given to covering up for her mother…trying to undo the difficult situations that her mother would get into in public. 

       It seemed that no matter what Ruth’s mother, Miriam/Mim, attempted to do; she did it poorly when it was compared to the expectations of other women her age.  Miriam wanted and needed more out of life than to be “just” a wife and mother.  She wanted and needed to have a job or career where she felt like she was contributing to society as a person.  Not just becoming a servant to a husband or children. 

       Mim was brow beaten emotionally by trying to live up to her parents expectations for her life; what did they want or expect for her?  They wanted her to meet and marry a nice man who would support her.  She was told that she was not beautiful and therefore would have a hard time finding someone who would take her on.  She was educated and she was gifted but those were not qualities that were valued in large measure by her parents.  So she married and had a child and the marriage did not work.

      Mim married again and had another child…but again, trying to fit her soul into the expected norm of a homemaker was slowly killing her and making her emotionally ill.  Her attempts at entertaining or fulfilling the role of a Brownie leader for her daughter Ruth’s troop were disastrous.   Her mother could not cook…but would often mix up strange concoctions that actually could and did make people ill (including the wedding party for her son which she turned into a fundraiser).  

        Mim became a very unhappy woman because she was unfulfilled.  Was she always manic-depressive or was her illness brought on by her dissatisfaction with her lot in life as a married woman.  She began teaching her daughter to understand that she did not need to get married; that she not only was within her rights to get a job as an adult, but that it was the only way to fulfill her self worth.  She taught her daughter to be independent and somewhat defiant. 

        Which is why she had a hard time helping her daughter plan her wedding…she just didn’t believe in it or want it for her daughter; in fact, she actively tried to dissuade her from geting married.  When her daughter announced that she was going to write a book, her mother Mim was outraged that they had sent her away to study only to write a “cook book”. 

         Ruth swore she would never be like her mother who she found embarassing and bitter.  After her mother passed, Ruth went through her mother’s personal letters and documents.  She discovered a woman who was doing her best to teach her daughter to not follow the advice of others like she herself felt compelled to do.  She taught her to think and choose for herself.   Mim was a woman who was living her life through the expectations of her parents and others.  She did not even gain a moments joy in living until she grieved the loss of her husband and then discovered with him gone and her parents gone…she was “free” to choose to live the way she wished.

        In her heart, she felt she wasted her life by not doing what she wanted to do by becoming a physician.  That had been her dream; instead she went and got a degree in music and then got married because it was expected of her. 

         As an adult, Ruth came to realize through her mother’s writings; a woman who forfeited her life for others.  She had compassion on her mother who had a difficult and unhappy life.  She gained a new respect for who her mother was and appreciated her mothers subtle attempts to raise her to ask questions, to stand her ground and go her own way.

         This book is a good read for anyone who struggles living with a loved one who is trapped in the illness that is bi-polarism or what used to be called manic-depression.  It is good for mothers and daughters as they read and understand the need to openly communicate and accept the freedom of choices in how each other lives.  I recommend this book. 

           Not Becoming My Mother, was published in 2009 by Thorndike Press.  The author is Ruth Reichl and she is the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine.  She is also the published author of  Tender At The Bone & Comfort Me With Apples.