January 9, 2025
I am so conflicted about this book. Because it's not that it's a bad book - it's not! It is a well done memoir, but it's not the memoir I thought it was going to be. And in my opinion, it's not the memoir it presented itself as.
I expected a story of Kelly's realization that, while she spent much of her time as a parent putting things off and telling herself that there would always be another soccer game (her work as a journalist with NPR kept her away from her family more often than not) she was running out of next times. Suddenly, her older son was a senior and there was no next year. There were only a handful of soccer games left. There were only a few months, rather than years, left before he went off to start his own life.
She explains, early on, that the book was written in real time - in that last year before her son, James, goes off to college - but I wish it hadn't been. Because of that, it becomes one more thing she has to work on in a period of time when she claims she's trying to work less.
And I think it keeps her from having the level of distance from the time period that she needed to write about it effectively. She talks about work - how much she enjoys her job, what it means to her, some of the amazing things she's done - much more than she actually talks about her sons. And because she talks about her work so much, you get the feeling that she isn't really making that much of an effort to spend this time with her kids, as she intended.
(And if she is, she's not writing about it which seems to defeat the purpose.)
Mary Louise Kelly is a good writer - she does it for a living, after all - and she has an intriguing job, so this wasn't boring to hear. But it reads more as if she's trying to justify why she missed so many things with her kids as they grew up. I think if she'd actually taken the year off (as much as possible) and spent that time with her family, then written this a few years later, we would have a much different (and, I believe, better) book.
However, if you are simply a fan of Kelly's (I didn't know who she was before reading this but apparently a lot of people are fans of hers), then you'll probably enjoy this regardless. It's a wonderful insight into her life and work, and she narrates the audiobook which makes it feel quite personal; you can hear the emotion in her voice at points as she gets choked up.
I just don't know that I got that much out of it. I didn't relate much to Kelly. I'm not a parent of late teens, but I am currently expecting my first baby and I though this could be an interesting look at a possible future, a sort of warning to savor the moments you can. It wasn't that. But the bigger issue was that I'm just not a very career-oriented person, so I just couldn't relate to her struggle between her work and her children.
I would actively choose to leave my job, after having children, if I could.
At its core, I suppose this is a tale of the struggle of not losing your personhood to motherhood. Mary Louise Kelly seems to cling to the work she enjoys because it is when she feels most herself. A few times, she seems to struggle with the way society tends to simplify one's complex identity into simply that of "Mother", after having children. I do understand that, and I think that's worth writing about, I just didn't think this book was going to be that. In the end, I was disappointed with what I got from this book based on what I was expecting, but I still thought it was a technically good book.
