Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores the Truth about Parenting and Happiness.

When her daughter was born at 28 weeks, leaving mother and child dangerously ill, Valenti felt enormous disappointment and a sense of failure. Not only had she missed a "good birth" resulting in a full-term healthy baby and happy family, her expectations surrounding the experience, the elation and bonding she had been societally conditioned to encounter, were unfulfilled. In this, her fourth book%E2%80%94a politicized, anti-What to Expect When You're Expecting%E2%80%94the high-profile, third-wave feminist takes an intense and scathing look at charged contemporary parenting issues, moving beyond "mommy wars" and breast-is-best militants to show just how much the current American ideal of parenting fails to match reality. With post-partum panic past, and her child thriving, Valenti probes accepted practices and questions the pervasive philosophy of modern mothering, with its many fallacies and assumptions including: alarming pre-conception and pregnancy advisories; whether women are naturally better parents; and if mothering is the hardest job in the world. Valenti pointedly reveals how trading a career for staying at home with the kids, the myth of the "perfect mother," and the death of the nuclear family damaged more women than society will acknowledge. Occasionally, a reader may be unsure whether Valenti is airing her own grievances or those of mommy-bloggers and the media; but that aside, this timely volume, which should generate much controversy, is a call for much-needed change and may unite a new generation of moms. (Sept.)