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FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES
Enter
Q&A
HUFFINGTON
08.26.12
N WHY HAVE KIDS? A New Mom Explores the Truth About
Parenting and Happiness, feminist author Jessica Valenti
poses a question that few people actually wrestle with before
taking the plunge into parenthood. She spoke with Huffington
about the apolitical mommy blogosphere, why motherhood
shouldn’t be considered a job and why it’s ridiculous to
expect children to bring us joy. - Lori Leibovich
Why did you write this book? When I
signed on to do the book, I was six
months pregnant. It was going to
be a feminist polemic about how to
be the best feminist mother. I had
grand ideas about attachment parenting and breastfeeding and the
over-medicalization of birth. Then I
got preeclampsia in my 28th week.
I went in for a normal doctor’s
visit—they took my blood pressure
and sent me to the hospital. Within
days my liver started to fail. I got an
emergency C-section and then my
daughter was in the NICU for several months. I had an extremely medicalized birth, a far cry from what I
had wanted. What I thought were
feminist ideals about bonding with
your kid became impossible for me
to obtain. So the book turned out to
be about that disconnect where the
reality doesn’t meet the ideal and
the misery it’s causing parents.
In your case, that disconnect was particularly acute because of the trauma
surrounding your daughter’s birth. But
you talk about how women who have
“normal” births often feel the same way.
Other people described the disconnect about not loving breast-
Valenti with
Ann F. Lewis
and Marissa
Mayer at an
Elle panel
discussion in
New York.