Okay, it's serious

Yes, it's become a rather serious blog.

I didn't plan it that way. I thought I could pull off writing a happy cheery book-and-blog that still managed to give voice to the real problems facing women, and mothers in particular, and how we rarely get a chance to talk about these things.

I wanted to keep it perky. In real life I like to laugh. I like to joke, and I like to smile. When I first drafted the book, it was all in a first person voice. It wasn't supposed to be memoir, but still, I was the guide through the world of early motherhood and its social politics. I wanted to capture the fun of it all-you know, hanging at the playground, making new friends, watching toddlers do jellyrolls down a slow hill while miraculously avoiding all traces of dog poop. I wanted to show that one can be serious about the world and the need for change, and still care about how to make an excellent dinner party. The first draft even included a few recipes. The idea was to combine the daily practicality of life with children, of life as a woman trying to take time off from a career without ditching it all, with more philosophical ruminations of why it's still so hard to combine work and motherhood, why none of our options are excellent.

No one wanted to publish that version. it mixed genres, I was told by various editors.

In the meantime, a good book, a serious book, by a fabulous new writer who's rather fun over the telephone, as I discovered when I interviewed her for my book: check out Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: The F-Word.