Friday, May 07, 2004

Pregnant with possibility

Shelagh Rogers is interviewing Rebecca Eckler this morning regarding her new book, Knocked Up: Confessions of a Modern Mother-to-be.

I'm fascinated with this weird little genre, the pregnancy memoirs and the mommy lit.

Shelagh's questioning sounds scripted and uninterested. Ms Eckler sounds like a ditz: he was like . . . I was like . . . — some version of a valley girl accent.

An optional c-section — a choice I can't understand. "Like if my water breaks at the Gap. That doesn't appeal to me at all." "Career woman." Wants to know when things are going to happen. Surprise: she had trouble finding a doctor that would do it.

Publishers like to tell you the pregnancy memoir is a story all mothers can relate to, a universal experience. Well, it's not. My experience of pregnancy was vastly different from what friends of mine have gone through.

Eckler's experience as written, though allegedly sprinkled with humour, is distasteful to me — selfish and immature.

Pregnancy helped me grow as a person. I can't extrapolate to say the same occurs for all pregnant women. Obviously, it didn't hold true for the shallow party girl.

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