Allison Pearson - I Don't Know How She Does It
I saw an advert for the new film starring Sarah Jessica Parker when I went to see Something Borrowed, and decided to investigate this story a bit further, especially considering the hype and feminist debate the release of the film created. I resolved not to see the film because it irritated me that yet again an original story set in London had been relocated to America! I love Boston - I lived there for four months of my life - but it's not London. I felt the same annoyance when Confessions of a Shopaholic was transferred to New York, when the whole point of the second book is that she (an English girl) falls in love with an American and they MOVE to New York. Destroyed the ability to make a sequel anyway. So, I decided to buy the book, in fact I actually bought it on impulse when I had a couple of hours to kill in a Starbucks in London before my shift started at work.
I perhaps expected great things. I think it's probably highly likely that my future position will be rather similar to Kate Reddy's, because I too want both a family and a high power career - although I'm hoping my future husband would also have a well paid job so I won't shoulder the financial burden like Reddy does in this novel. I was looking for inspiration, some sort of indication that it is possible to do both and be good at both.
Perhaps it is better to start purely from the story, which I enjoyed. I thought it was engaging, if a little predictable - an almost-affair with an exciting foreigner, a high pressure middle class environment - and I suppose I quite liked how this book gave a glimpse into both the work life and home life of the character. Also, really interesting was how different the male characters were in each scenario, and in fact the most endearing male in the whole book is Reddy's boss. Indeed, the most moving part of the book (I think), concerns this character and his home life. But Reddy's relationship with her children also really touched me. There were moments where I could actually relate to the children too - I was once a little girl who wanted to rewind Sleeping Beauty so I could stop Aurora frm pricking her finger on the spinning wheel and falling to the evil evil Malificent (still must be THE MOST evil Disney villain ever, enough to strike fear into every little girl). The characters were dynamic; the only development criticism I would have is that Pearson could have made so much more of Reddy's wider familial relationships. I particularly would have liked to see more of her husband's condescending sister, although the author perhaps decided to make more of the non-working power mothers in order to fill this role, and indeed it was done rather well. In fact, I really hated the power mothers. And I hated the way, from a young person's point of view, that Emily's future was being pressured and planned already, when she was only 5! Poor child. The pressures of the modern education system and getting in to a good secondary school (something myself and my parents can still easily recall) were portrayed very well. It was the underwriting nuances in this book which made it a good read, in terms of the story. I particularly liked Momo, the younger woman in the book who Reddy originally passes off but eventually (if reluctantly initially) takes under her wing. I think I probably share this character's naivety and opinions far more than Reddy's.
So, where was my disappointment? I've got to say... it was the ending. In fact, it wasn't even the ending, it was the fact that throughout the book the work-family dichotomy was presented as a choice. Perhaps I'm being naive, or perhaps I am so focused on the career side of that equation that the family part doesn't occur to me too much, but it annoyed me that Reddy was always under pressure from someone to make a choice. Why should it be a choice? Does it have to be a choice?! I didn't find Reddy's eventual choice very uplifting; one extreme lifestyle was swapped for another, and perhaps that's how this book should be read - as a battle of the extremes. Is Reddy's conscience and guilt one that I will encounter in the future? Does doing a job that you relish; enjoy; get an absolute adrenalin rush from, just become a guilty burdenous load the moment your life becomes not just for yourself but for your children too?
At the time, I read an interesting article in the Guardian which I would refer anyone who has an interest in the subject to, click here. This article raises some of the issues I wish Pearson had dealt with, or I wish she had dealt with in a little more detail. I very often felt that Pearson was on the brink of conveying something really significant and revolutionary but then backed away, or tempered it by having Reddy feel sorry for her husband, or burden her with a dollop of motherly guilt. And I kept asking myself, why isn't there any fatherly guilt? Has anyone even raised this concept? Do father's feel guilty for the fact that a) there are children out there who only see their fathers in the early/late hours of the day and at weekends and b) that their wives are at home perhaps not following their own dreams or career aspirations or desires? Indeed, I think another pitfall of the novel is that you never really know enough about Reddy's husband. Maybe that's the point - to show that she doesn't really know him anymore. I'm sure there are many women who are wholly satisfied with remaining at home with their children; and I don't condemn that at all. I think it's brilliant. But there are women out there who are not satisfied. How do their husbands feel? Are they satisfied? Do they know whether their children like brocolli or not? Or are we still stuck in the traditional interpretation that the male in the family is the breadwinner and the female's role is in the home, and if that is the make up in the family then all is well, but if the opposite occurs then the family is odd, an anomaly?! Parenthood should be a 50/50 endeavour, but judging by this book, it's not, because there is never any indication of how the working father figure deals with this. Indeed, the only time this issue is tackled even slightly in the novel is when Reddy's boss is literally forced to consider it.
Honestly, I think my reading of this book was tainted by the fact that it didn't give me the answers or the interpretation I wanted from it. But perhaps that is something I will have to learn in my future.
