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An author of a “momlit” asks:Why momlit?
When my reading group, which is made up mostly of moms, considered reading the most well-known momlit I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT by Alison Pearson, there was a wall of resistance that made me nervous.
“Who cares?” said a mother of two, “about a mother being driven crazy by her children?”
Since my publisher is marketing my novel ARE YOU IN THE MOOD? as momlit, I listened with interest.
“I read to get away from thinking about my kids. Why read about someone else’s kids? Sounds boring.”
Since none of them knew it was getting this label, or what my new book was about, I kept my mouth shut, too.
“The author obviously had enough free time to write a book about how ‘hard’ it is to be a mother, and then she was lucky enough to get it published, so give me a break.”
“Worse yet, who wants to read about a mom who enjoys being with her children?”
“And does craft projects and homeschooling.”
“And makes sure her kids snack on carrot sticks.”
“I’d rather stick my head in the oven.”
“Hey. Anyone want to read something by Sylvia Plath for next time?”
Women are the majority of book buyers. And women love to read books by women about women. But is there a resistance to thinking about what happens after the wedding day? I can’t believe that it’s automatically boring to hear about what comes next. Is it all just downhill? Does anyone really care about a woman once she has children? Can moms make interesting main characters?
The label “momlit” wouldn’t exist were it not for its predecessor “chicklit,” which is generally about women in their 20s and 30s before marriage. My first novel THOUGHTS WHILE HAVING SEX was marketed as a chicklit. I didn’t conceive of it that way. That would’ve been impossible since the term didn’t exist when I wrote it. It’s about a young woman whose sister has committed suicide. My heroine’s guilt over her sister’s death interferes with her being able to experience pleasure in her work and her relationships. I don’t think it’s what people typically imagine when they hear the label chicklit. There is no shopping in the book. No skewering of evil employers at a glamorous job. And though there is some romance, it’s not the focus.
There’s been a certain amount of backlash against chicklit. I’ve seen websites that are meant to be outlets for women writers bashing the category as superficial trash. Some established women writers have attacked the books as marriage obsessed, naive and retro. This disheartens me. The fact is, the marketing term “chicklit” has made it possible for many women writers to get published, have their voices heard, and be received by enthusiastic female readers. The fact that the major booksellers like Barnes and Noble and Borders have seen a way to merchandise these books so they actually sell has translated into more opportunities for women to get published. This has meant more opportunities for women writers to express what’s on their mind. And there is a lot on all our minds.
These books are not formula. They are as individual as their writers. To assume these books are as disposable as magazines just because they have a cutesy, colorful cover is to perpetuate a devaluation of female creativity that exists in our culture. These books provide a place for women to compare notes, identify with each other, ask questions and puzzle out what it means to live in a world where we’re expected to be ambitious yet wear six-inch heels.
I’m fairly certain my novel would never have been published if my agent hadn’t been shopping it around right when publishers were looking for books that could be marketed to the same readers who loved BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY and SEX AND THE CITY. I will always be grateful to my editor, John Scognamiglio, for being able to conceive of my book as chicklit. If he hadn’t, THOUGHTS WHILE HAVING SEX would probably be in the drawer along with my three earlier unpublished novels. I count myself privileged to be a writer for “chicks.”
Having found this way to sell novels by women for women, and wanting to expand the market, publishers decided it was time for chicklit to “grow up,” and so the term momlit – also sometimes known as mumlit, henlit, and ladylit -- was coined. But after listening to my reading group, I had to wonder. Will this label work? After all, it’s fun to be a chick. It’s cool. Single women love to analyze their love lives and share all the trials and tribulations. But do they share, in the same way, what happens after the commitment is made? Or does it become more about protecting that marriage bond, making sure it appears to everyone else like everything is okay, and you most certainly did choose the right man to spend the rest of your life with, and have your children with, and no you don’t pine away every day for that East Village apartment where you could come and go as you pleased...
Momlit? It’s problematic. Not just to read it, also to write it. Why is it tempting to avoid looking at what happens after tying the knot?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that writers use a mix of lived experiences and imagined experiences to craft a novel. It’s impossible, after all, to write with authenticity if we don’t use what we’ve observed. But it’s also impossible to craft a story if events aren’t manipulated, exaggerated and re-imagined into a beginning, a middle and an end.
An author using her own marriage will be in danger of airing her own dirty laundry and, on some level, betraying her husband. But hey. He’s a grown-up; he can take it. And no one ever has to know what was real and what was invented.
But momlit is not just about wives; it’s about moms. It is from the point of view of the mother. That means the conflict is derived from the experience of mothering. And, presuming writers use material from their own experiences, how can a writer use her own children as material? For public consumption? Because we all know, mothers do have forbidden, unattractive, not-supposed-to be-expressed-or-even-thought feelings about their kids. And if she does use her own children to air her dirty diapers, so to speak, well, that smells bad.
I think that’s part of the reason there’s a resistance to the idea of momlit. It actually addresses some very difficult and provocative issues -- things we don’t really want to think about. Many if not all mothers feel ambivalent about their children. Yes, we feel unconditional love. Our children are our pride and joy. But we also have those moments where we get really, really angry, mad, frustrated… Say you’ve worked all day. And it was a lousy day. And all you want is a chance to relax and go to bed. But your child needs food. Your child needs help with the homework. Your child needs a bath. Your child throws a temper tantrum in the bath. You finally get your child into bed. Your child won’t let you leave the room until he’s fallen asleep. Your child won’t stop talking. Your nerves are frayed. You want to be a good mother, but… As Noelle Oxenhandler says in her brilliant book THE EROS OF PARENTHOOD: “Looking through stacks of parenting magazines, through the sea of cheerful tips on how to navigate the difficult moments, I am struck at how rarely there is the blunt admission that sometimes we hate our children.” We’re not supposed to admit that, but we do.
It’s very conflictual, because even we mothers are someone’s child. And as much as we might identify with another mother when we read about her, we will also identify with the child, who simply wants that unconditional love. And so we will judge that mother. If she doesn’t fully embrace being a mom, then something is wrong with her. The idea that mom isn’t always feeling loving, positive thoughts toward her child is even worse than the possibility that Mr. Right is emotionally unavailable. Who wants to read about a fallible mother? And what’s she doing being the heroine of a book? We’d rather not hear what she has to say. We’d rather think that she’s just fine, doesn’t need anything except flowers on Mother’s Day, and is available at all times for our needs just in case.
I think it’s very important for women to share our range of feelings about being mothers. As psychoanalyst Rozsike Parker says in her book MOTHER LOVE, MOTHER HATE, ambivalence is inescapable and is not the problem. The important thing is to acknowledge these less attractive feelings because it allows us to manage the guilt and anxiety provoked by them.
My novel ARE YOU IN THE MOOD? is divided into two parts. In the first half, my heroine Camille is single, ambitious actress who lives alone. But after a series of disappointments with her career, she decides to get married. Like life, her story does not end with the marriage ceremony. In the second half, she has a baby.
When she meets a flirtatious and powerful director, she pretends to be single to get an audition. As the deception becomes more elaborate, she’s not sure if her real performance is the one when she goes home to fix dinner and breastfeed, or the one where she tells herself she still has a chance to finally make it as an actress.
After having a baby, every woman realizes that an irreversible change has occurred. For the rest of her life, whether she likes it or not, she will be a mom. There is no going back. How does she grow to handle this very profound change? This is at the heart of the second half of my novel – how Camille begins to actually perceive herself as a mom. Because she is still very much Camille, the single woman of the first half of the book.
Every mom is only partly a mom. She has a past. She has a future. She’s an individual. Being called “mom” by my child is a lovely thing, and I treasure it. But even now, after sixteen years of being a parent, when one of my kids addresses me as “mom,” I don’t completely identify with it. It tickles me. Mom? I’m me! My mom is the mom. Right? Oh, no. That’s right. I’m one too.
Evil thoughts don’t make us evil moms. Listening to a character who is having angry, intolerant feelings toward her child can be distressing, but it can also be a relief. Other people feel that way too. I’m not such a horrible person! That’s why momlit is important. It’s a way for women to explore all the different feelings, some of them taboo, which are involved in being a mom.
- Stephanie Lehmann
If you have any thoughts about this essay, I would love to hear them. Please email me at StephanieLehmann@aol.com
SOME LINKS OF INTEREST:
www.literarymama.com | www.siliconmom.com | www.writefromhome.com
www.hipmama.com | www.chicklitbooks.com | www.chicklitwriters.com
www.literarychicks.com
www.deannacarlyle.com:
Owner of the yahoo chicklit list-serve, Deanna has great articles and publishing info.
Click on her list-serve link to join her online group of published and aspiring writers.
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