Baby Love: A Review

A short review of Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence:

I love Rebecca Walker. Love her! I love her for all of the reasons most feminists my age love her. Third wave feminism? Ah, yes.

I also love that she's ambivalent and obsessive about the same things I feel ambivalent and obsessive about...at least when it comes to having a baby.

Since she wrote this journal-style, at times it feels a little too close to reading your own diary, which makes it fun to read (as in, what would I write if I were Rebecca Walker?), but also makes me wonder how much she edited and re-wrote. Perhaps there is pride in using raw material? Or perhaps I loved it because it feels so comfortable, like something you can slip into over breakfast or with a glass of wine. It's not in my top ten favorite books of all time, but it is interesting, fun, and deliciously real.

The issues that ensue with her mother, Alice Walker, are beyond heartbreaking. Because Alice was my first love of the Walker family, I feel like there must be more to the story. She must have suffered some sort of abuse at the hands of her daughter; why else would you disown your 34-year-old brilliant, amazing, feminist, book-writing, pregnant daughter? From Rebecca's perspective, it sounds absolutely insane. That while she was pregnant, Rebecca's father wrote a letter to her mother in an attempt to convince her to be reasonable supports Rebecca's version of the story. That they're no longer talking means that something major happened, and I tend to believe Rebecca. How sad for both of them, and especially for baby Tenzin.