Review: Motherhood by Sheila Heti
We added Sheila Heiti’s Motherhood to our schedule without knowing much about the book. Unlike our other picks, the book focuses on not choosing the path of mothering. Refusing to become a mothering subject, Heiti turns toward being the object of someone’s mothering.
Photo by Steph Martyniuk.
The story is a novel written as a journal, a memoir, a long essay but also an experiment written as a dialogue with I Ching, a divination system. Originating from China thousands of years ago, I Ching is used to find guidance with questions that can only be answered by yes or no. To have or not to have a child In this format, the author questions her future, her fate, what she ‘should’ do. As if going against society’s current view on the ‘natural’ choice of motherhood for a woman was so difficult that it needed to be dictated by a higher power.
Heiti examines the motivations of a woman in her late thirties who needs to make an existential decision, and who eventually lets age decide for her. No need to align with the decision process to appreciate the journey and the rocks uncovered along the way; the narratives tap into cultural, societal, spiritual and familial experiences that all may tip the scale. A woman’s final independant decision is only as free as the resources that will enable her the raising of a child, the ‘village’ so needed. The importance of a supportive and motivated partner is necessary, although insufficient.
It also explores the role and place left for women who decide motherhood isn’t for them. Are society’s expectations so strong they need to articulate apologies or expectations? What pressures are exerted on them? Why are women freed from motherhood so unfit, so threatening?
“Living one way is not a criticism of every other way of living. Is that the threat of the woman without kids? Yet the woman without kids is not saying that no woman should have kids, or that you-woman with a stroller- have made the wrong choice. Her decision about her life is no statement about yours. One person’s life is not a political or general statement about how all lives should be. Other lives should be able to exist alongside our own without any threat or judgment at all.”
The novel unfolds over the last three years of the narrator’s thirties. Motherhood is examined from many angles: the possibility of regret, the perceived thankless nature of caregiving, the narcissism of duplicating genes, the feeling of obligation to carry on a lineage. Heiti’s biggest source of hesitation is whether a child would compete with a creative life. In our reading group, we noticed that our experience varied, for some us the feeling of compromise is constant, and some experienced a creative boost since becoming a parent. The narrative also leads to a reflection on her mother, recognizing her work and establishing the idea of writing as her own progeny. She takes this writing opportunity as a ‘life raft to get to the other side’ of choosing not to become a mother. It is a book for the contemporary woman who wants to explore different ways of thinking, to be as intentional as possible. Beyond motherhood, Heti explores how one leads a fulfilling, meaningful and authentic life, reflecting the efforts of our own mother - and how progeny might take many forms, including writing.
