Citizen Reader

I was underwhelmed by Meaghan O'Connell's memoir And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I was Ready, which was disappointing, because it got a lot of good press.

Let's first consider how the author got pregnant at age 29 (or 28; she had the baby at 29), shall we? Here we go:

"'I still haven't gotten my period,' I had said to Dustin that morning when we were getting dressed.

'You say this every month, though,' he'd said. He wasn't wrong. I was one of those women who managed to be caught off guard every single month when their periods came. I never had a tampon on me when I needed one." (pp. 4-5.)

Wait for it...

[After she gets engaged:] "How good it was to have something I was scared to want but wanted all the same. When we had sex that night--we had to; how could we not?--I told him it was fine, he didn't need to pull out, my period had just ended, don't worry about it." (p. 8.)

I'm sorry, "pulls out"? Are you telling me that in 2018, people are still considering "pulling out" a valid contraceptive method? And a woman who is relying on "pulling out" has no idea what her cycle is doing?

So of course she ends up pregnant, and when discussing options, her boyfriend clearly thinks they aren't ready to be parents, and this is what he says:

"Come on. We can have this baby again in a couple of years." (p. 29.)

I'm sorry, are you telling me that in 2018 men still don't know that if you abort one baby, the next one will probably not be a carbon copy? (Yes, I get it, he means they can just have a baby, any baby, in a couple of years when they're more ready. But that statement seems to me a crystal example of men JUST NEVER THINKING ABOUT IT, NOT REALLY.)

To her credit, O'Connell came back to that statement with the only logical answer:

"Dustin,' I said. 'That's literally what it won't be, this particular baby.'" (pp. 29-30.)

Yeah, I could say more, but I won't. I just didn't like it. I'd like to re-title it, as a matter of fact: "Millennial and Annoying Millennial Fiance/Husband Discover Pregnancy and Parenting Is Hard." 

I will conclude by saying the jacket copy calls this book "a brutally honest, agenda-free reckoning with the emotional and existential impact of motherhood," and I didn't think it was all that honest or emotional. If you want that I would highly suggest you read Labor Day, which mostly deals with the actual delivery of babies, but also gets at the "existential impact of motherhood," which, I have found, is mainly "You will control absolutely fucking nothing from now on...good luck with that."