It was this distraction, as much as the fact of motherhood itself, that I wanted to have within my control. I am struck by this distinction, for it is clear that they hunger to express themselves not as women, not as commentators or intellectuals, but as mothers. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. From that irreconcilable beginning, it seemed to me that some kind of slide into deeper patriarchy was inevitable: that the father’s day would gradually gather to it the armour of the outside world, of money and authority and importance, while the mother’s remit would extend to cover the entire domestic sphere. The loss of identity, of place in the world, the isolation, the agony of sleep deprivation, of anxiety.

One famous columnist wrote a piece demanding that Cusk’s children be taken into care, saying she was unfit to look after them, and Oprah Winfrey invited her on the show to defend herself. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. She describes in stark vividness her treatment by midwives, health visitors, doctors, her friends, her partner. Le mémoire de Cusk est le récit profondément personnel d’une expérience que toutes les mères ont partagé, mais qui n’est pourtant quasiment jamais représentée dans la littérature : la jeune mère est dépossédée de son soi social et devient esclave de la survie de son bébé, dont l’existence est à ce stade de sa vie, limitée à la vie nue. If becoming a mother knocked your sense of self out the window and you recognize that there is ambivalence and humor in all aspects of the journey for you AND your child, then you will find gain something from reading this book.Rachel Cusk is the author of nine novels, three non-fiction works, a play, and numerous shorter essays and memoirs.

Cusk anatomises motherhood as Montaigne anatomised friendship or Robert Burton anatomised melancholy .That is essential reading not only for all mothers but for everyone to fully understand both the privilege and sacrifice of motherhood. I find that I like women less than I did, and wonder whether other feminists have been in the same uncomfortable position. Seeking guidance, Cusk turns to literature, finding that motherhood is an experience rarely written about: “As a sequel to youth, beauty, or independence, motherhood promises from its first page to be a longer and more difficult volume: the story of how Tolstoy’s Natasha turned from a trilling, beribboned heartbreaker into inscrutable matriarch, of how daughters become parents and heroines implacable opponents of the romantic plot.