In her book, Diary of a Mother, Christine Hohlbaum — a former career woman now raising two young children — delves deep into the day-to-day chaos of family life and comes up with some gems.
I was a successful career woman. I owned expensive, dry-clean-only clothing. My nails were often manicured, and I found pleasure in sleeping, a lot. I used to get my hair cut every six weeks. My car was always clean, my mirrors at home sparkled, and I never, never bought Cheerios. God, how my life has changed.
Diary of a Mother is a collection of brief short stories, just the right length for a busy parent to finish before being interrupted by someone creaming “Mamaaaa!”
As she went from booth to booth, she pointed at each person and said, “You have a vagina, you have a penis, you have a penis, too. You have a vagina, you and you and you have a vagina…” One woman almost choked on her food as Sophia passed by.
Although Hohlbaum fails in some of the stories to exploit the full comic potential of the situations her children get her into (most of the stories in the book will have you chuckling with recognition rather than weeping with laughter), this is due more to her relative lack of cynicism and broader scope rather than any comic shortcomings. Hohlbaum writes with love and generosity and obviously gets it.
All of the tough or embarrassing situations parents can expect to face are here: from the bad day at the doctor’s “Pee, pee, Mama!” came a sudden cry from Sophia, to religious instruction “What about your child’s moral upbringing?” she queried… “Moral upbringing?” I asked with surprise. “Gee, I haven’t thought about that.”; sickness and exhaustion “I know I’m in trouble when I’ve slept in my deerskin slippers for five consecutive nights.” or changing times “…the doctor then asked, “Can she manipulate a computer mouse?” Manipulate a computer mouse? I was shocked. What about holding a crayon?”.
Diary of a Mother is more than just a work of humor, though. As I said, Hohlbaum has a broader scope, and she also covers the more serious issues of parenting here, often with a refreshingly humorous angle. In a chapter entitled “Henny Penny, my Butt is Falling” she discusses ageing, and in “Getting to D” she talks about coping with financial problems “Just when I thought I had not one more megabyte of energy for anything else, my husband lost his job.”.
Hohlbaum even manages to get a smile out of nearly wrecking her car:
Miraculously, the car veered in a full circle and stopped in the driving direction without hitting a single passing car. “This is why we wear seat belts,” I mustered a cheery grin at my shrieking two-year-old.”
Every reader will find something here that rings a bell. Personally, I was tickled to find a piece about using story-telling to get a toddler to brush her teeth, something I have done more than once. “We parents go to extreme lengths to get our children to do what they’re supposed to do…” while my wife Alpha and daughter Beta got a laugh out of Hohlbaum’s story about housecleaning issues, something that has come up around our house as well:
“My husband’s tolerance for dirt is remarkable… Even the crunch and squeak of his shoes as he passes over the kitchen floor do little to draw his attention to the need for sweeping and mopping.”
Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff is a book of warmly anecdotal humor, written with compassion and understanding. It will spark laughs of recognition among those of us who have been through the experience of parenting young children, and serve as a gentle warning to those considering having kids.
Diary of a Mother
Parenting Stories and Other Stuff
by Christine Louise Hohlbaum
iUniverse, Inc 2003
ISBN: 0-595-28040-4
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