Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence

From the bestselling author whom Time magazine hails as one of the leaders of her generation, an insightful, moving, and entertaining memoir of pregnancy and the decision to conceive a child after years of uncertainty.

Like many women her age, Rebecca Walker was brought up to be skeptical of motherhood. A young woman's future was limitless, their mothers' generation told them. A child could rob one of independence, economic freedom, professional advancement, and just about everything else worth having. But all the empowerment and reproductive choice offered to this generation, Walker now realizes, may actually have led to a new kind of struggle.

For fifteen years Walker recognized a persistent yearning to have a baby but feared actually choosing to do it. As a result, she almost missed what she now knows to be the single most meaningful experience of her life. In Baby Love, Rebecca Walker tells the story of her pregnancy: not just the physical evolution, but also the emotional and intellectual transformation from ambivalence to certainty to unconditional love. It's the story of the birth of her son, as well as the tale of a generation — a wise, thought-provoking, and above all engaging memoir by a writer who has proven herself to be an important voice of her era.

"The author of Black, White and Jewish gives voice to the uncertainty of her generation in a powerful new memoir. In journal format, beginning with the day her pregnancy is confirmed and ending as she and her partner bring their son home, Walker tells of her physical and emotional journey toward motherhood, poignantly reflecting on the ambivalence that has delayed her dream of having a child for years. Like many 20- and 30-somethings, she was raised to view partnership and parenthood as the least empowering choices in an infinite array of options. This tension comes to the fore as Walker's mother, Alice Walker, opposes her decision to have a baby and challenges her account of their relationship in Black, White and Jewish. Alice ends their relationship and removes Rebecca from her will, and Rebecca endures a tumultuous pregnancy, estranged from her mother as she prepares to become one herself. Elusive health complications arise, and she hops from doctor to doctor, ever wary of Western medicine. Through a lengthy litany of decisions (midwife versus M.D., stroller versus 'travel system'), she Googles her way to information overload. At the end of this nine-month mental tug-of-war, she emerges changed: a meat eater, a committed partner with a renewed faith in intimacy, a new woman plus-one. Walker's story is accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit and warmth." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"The author of Black, White and Jewish gives voice to the uncertainty of her generation in a powerful new memoir. In journal format, beginning with the day her pregnancy is confirmed and ending as she and her partner bring their son home, Walker tells of her physical and emotional journey toward motherhood, poignantly reflecting on the ambivalence that has delayed her dream of having a child for years. Like many 20- and 30-somethings, she was raised to view partnership and parenthood as the least empowering choices in an infinite array of options. This tension comes to the fore as Walker's mother, Alice Walker, opposes her decision to have a baby and challenges her account of their relationship in Black, White and Jewish. Alice ends their relationship and removes Rebecca from her will, and Rebecca endures a tumultuous pregnancy, estranged from her mother as she prepares to become one herself. Elusive health complications arise, and she hops from doctor to doctor, ever wary of Western medicine. Through a lengthy litany of decisions (midwife versus M.D., stroller versus 'travel system'), she Googles her way to information overload. At the end of this nine-month mental tug-of-war, she emerges changed: a meat eater, a committed partner with a renewed faith in intimacy, a new woman plus-one. Walker's story is accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit and warmth." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Rebecca Walker comes to her ambivalence by birth. The biracial daughter of divorced parents, she spent her childhood moving between two households on opposite coasts — and between two radically different ways of life. She is also a product of 1970s feminism, a member of 'the first generation of women to grow up thinking of children as optional.' Her mother, the novelist Alice Walker, has written... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) of her own mixed feelings about having a child; now it is Rebecca's turn. Her new memoir is a thoughtful and amusing play-by-play of pregnancy and birth, investigating the difference between the theory surrounding motherhood and the scary, messy, snuggly practice of it.

She barely got beyond the theory phase. During her eight-year relationship with the musician Meshell Ndegeocello, the two women had asked a male friend to serve as birth father — 'the natural way, no turkey basters.' They considered moving as a group to Europe, 'where I could write and be cared for by the thriving holistic midwifery and healing network. I could learn French, and the baby could be bilingual, and we could live in one of those charming villages in Switzerland.' The arrangement fell apart after a first failed try at conception.

But that's just back story. The 30-something Walker who learns she is pregnant on page 1 of 'Baby Love' is somewhat more grounded, no small thanks to her new partner, Glen, the baby's father, seemingly a model of well-adjusted, nurturing manhood. He rejects her 'polytheistic fiesta' childbirth fantasy, in which 'everyone I know and love will climb into the hot tub-cum-birthing pool with me,' massaging her scalp with lavender oil and feeding her organic chocolate cake. But mostly she worries about the usual stuff: What kind of hospital? Amnio or no? And can they even afford a kid? Consulting an array of health professionals (homeopath, Tibetan doctor, birth doula, et al.), she decries the medicalization of pregnancy and society's lack of support for pregnant women but delights in buying haute maternity wear. Ultimately, the actual birth brings her further down to Earth: 'I retract my judgment of every woman who has had or will have a scheduled C-section,' she declares. Yes, the pain is that bad.

'Baby Love' never mentions Alice Walker by name, and some readers may not infer the connection. Regardless, Rebecca's mother does not come off well. For years, she kept a sign over her desk comparing her young daughter to the obstacles faced by great women writers — Virginia Woolf's madness, Zora Neale Hurston's poverty and ill health. 'You have Rebecca,' the sign reminded her, 'who is much more delightful and less distracting than any of the calamities above.' Walker had the right to say that (she concludes one important essay by quoting that sign in full), but for her daughter, there were consequences to being considered a 'calamity,' no matter how prettily it's put.

When Rebecca told her mother she was pregnant, Alice was hardly effusive. Later in the pregnancy, she suddenly threatened to denounce Rebecca in a letter to the online magazine Salon, which had recently quoted a passage from her memoir ('Black White and Jewish') that criticized her parents. 'She called me a liar, a thief ... and a few other completely discrediting unmentionables,' reports Rebecca. Alice backed down, but there were more confrontations via e-mail: 'She writes that she has been my mother for thirty years and is no longer interested in the job.'

By the time Rebecca's son was born, they were no longer in communication. Perhaps because of the book's journal format, which puts big and small events on an equal footing, these developments don't get the attention they deserve. Nor do we know for sure what Alice's side of the story is — though to be fair, this isn't her book.

Rebecca has lived most of her life similarly to her mother, valuing personal independence over all else. Getting pregnant changed that. 'Until you become a mother, you're a daughter,' Rebecca writes. In her case, that also means a chance to be the parent she wishes she'd had. But lest she hold herself to too high a standard, it's worth considering that motherhood is, by nature, a bifurcating force: Childbirth threatens to split you literally in two, but good parenting does it emotionally, again and again. Ambivalence goes with the territory.

Sara Sklaroff is a Washington-based writer and editor.

" Reviewed by Bryan BurroughNicholas DelbancoJuan WilliamsFrancine du Plessix GrayJoe HeimRon CharlesRobert PinskyJonathan YardleyMichael DirdaSara Sklaroff, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"Walker's work will no doubt do well owing to her celebrity, the titillating details she offers about her conflict with her famous mother, and the window she provides readers into her lavish lifestyle." Library Jounral

"Walker sways on a kind of scary, sublime suspension bridge, stretched between being somebody's child and becoming somebody's mother, and turning her fiercely compassionate intelligence to both. Thanks to her unique vision, the familiar views along the way become nothing short of astounding." Catherine Newman, author of Waiting for Birdy

"Those of us who have followed Rebecca Walker have come to expect a brilliant journey, one that locates the balance between reason and emotion, blood and sinew. Baby Love does not disappoint. As a daughter, but most of all as a mother I read this book and was transformed." Asha Bandele, author of The Prisoner's Wife

"In Baby Love, Rebecca Walker has shone a bright light on the Ambivalent Generation. Moving, wise, and deeply honest, Baby Love has illuminated a crucial question for our times." Danzy Senna, author of Symptomatic

Beautifully written, Baby Love will resonate with any woman who has fallen in love with her baby or is wrestling with choosing motherhood." Miriam Arond, Editor-in-Chief of Child magazine

"Baby Love is a gorgeous memoir, confessional in the most universal of ways. In richly-detailed prose, Walker takes us on her journey toward motherhood, and womanhood, and, ultimately, personhood, with unflinching honesty and raw, painfully beautiful storytelling." Alisa Valdes, author of Make Him Look Good

From the bestselling author hailed by "Time" magazine as one of the leaders of her generation comes an insightful memoir of pregnancy and her decision to conceive a child after years of uncertainty.

Rebecca Walker has received numerous awards and accolades for her writing and activism. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and publications, and her books include the national bestseller Black, White, and Jewish and the feminist anthology To Be Real, which has become a standard text in women's studies courses across the country.