MotherTalk Blog Book Tour: Choosing You
I have friends in their mid-thirties who are trying to figure out the next step in their lives. They are vibrant, funny, passionate people. They are generous, good listeners, patient, and kind. Yet somehow, they find themselves without partners and children, when there is nothing they want more. They spend their time debating whether it's worth waiting to meet a partner who may never materialize while they are still fertile, or whether they should make the most of their fertility and start a family of their own. They wonder how to go about doing this. And if they are successful, they wonder whether their other loved ones (parents, siblings, friends) will be around to help raise the baby.
These are the same questions that Alexandra Soiseth mulls over in her lovely memoir, Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own. At 39, Soiseth finds herself, despite significant effort, without a life partner and an urgent desire to have children of her own. She is settled in her career, she is comfortable with her life, she is surrounded by many loving friends and family. Everything has fallen into place beautifully, with the exception that she hasn't yet had a child.
In Choosing You, Soseith is frank and unapologetic about her decision to make a baby using donor sperm. And she writes with refreshing honesty and wit about her ensuing conception and pregnancy, and the first months of new motherhood as a woman going it alone. But this is not just a book about the journey to chosen single motherhood. It's an exploration of Soiseth's urgent need to find community at every stage of her life and to receive unconditional acceptance from everyone she meets. It's a reexamination of her feelings of abandonment by her mother, her fluctuating weight, and an incident of abuse in her childhood. Soiseth's voice is soothing and genuine, and it's clear by the end that her quest for a dependable extended family, as well as the family she creates on her own, make her the woman she's always wanted to be.
I'm giving away my review copy to a lucky commenter. If you are single and want children, have you considered having them on your own? If you have a partner, would you have considered having children on your own if you had never met your partner?
[This review was paid for by MotherTalk.]
10 comments:
I am single, and although I am not ready to start having children, my previous dating experiences have made me seriously question whether or not a partner is really that important in my ultimate dream of becoming a mother. Do I really need to wait for Mr. Right to come along to have a baby? I have decided that I don't. The topics that Soiseth addresses are questions that I ask myself about this. I think that community is really important in raising a child, especially when you are going at it alone, and I would really like to read this book to see some of her experiences. This sounds like a must read.
A,
Before I met my love at the age of 25 (?) I had already told my mother that I would be having a baby by 27, with or without a partner.
For some reason, 27 was the age I chose.
She raised the concerns that I would have a much harder time finding someone with a babe in tow. I didn't care.
When she told my aunt what I had decided she made the very nasty comment "We Sheftalls don't have babies out of wedlock"
I told her that it was a good thing I was not then, nor would ever be, a Sheftall.
Anyway, I am glad it worked out the way it did because I got to tell you that single parents are my heroes.
I can't imagine taking this journey alone.
But I am just as sure I would have.
Hope all is well with you and yours.
T
No, I don't think I would ever have had children without my husband.
I would love to read this book. I am 32 and single and not interested in being anything other than single. I do, however, want children more than anything. I have looked into adoption and would consider using donor sperm. It's something I've thought a lot about, and when the timing is right I plan on pursuing it.
I would hope that if I was single, I would have the means to have a child on my own. My desire to be a mother started when I was a very little girl - with my first baby doll. I can't imagine not being able to live out that dream. Several of Amy's preschool classmates are children of moms who chose to become single parents (i.e. they are not divorced or widowed). They are as "good" at being a mother as most married women I know - but they also are old enough and have had successful enough careers to support their (only) children comfortably. However - I am sure that they would tell you that some days it would be much easier to have a supportive partner to share the responsibility (but then, I imagine a good number of married women are in that same boat).
Hi,
I am not single, but your question set me thinking .. what if I were and wanted to have a child too? Hmm .. I definitely would have wanted to go through the experience of being pregnant, nursing and the pride of giving birth and caring for a new born. Sure, but, I would weigh those needs against the necessity for the child to have a father figure at home. I would want to adopt too but then again, I believe every child needs a father figure and a complete family for healthy upbringing. I would need partnership for me and support in raising a child. Only after having a baby myself, do I actually understand how difficult it is to raise a child, let alone alone doing it alone !! I think that the father figure element is more important to the child than how the child came into the world (whether adoption or donor sperm or the couple's biological child).
With that said, if I don't find a partner. I would surely not go for donor sperms. I would adopt! And only orphans. That way the orphan child would at least have one parent. I would not get to go through bearing a child but the adopted child also has only one parent. We both compromise !!
Sorry for the long response.
-Vidya
No idea. The book sounds interesting.
I'd like to think that I still have time to find a husband...I mean I am the ripe old age of 23, but dating while living in this city has been quite an adventure. I'm thinking about penning a memoir, "Dating and Other Disasters". haha. I'd consider having kids alone, but a lot of other factors that I can't predict at this time would play into it. Then again, if any of the above bad dates were the donor daddy...the next 21 years would be mighty interesting!
Glad that you, Brian, and the girls are all doing well!
There was a time in my life I thought I would have kids no matter what. Then there was a time in my marriage it seemed kids would be out of the question.
If I had kept at my same job and been single, I would not have had children. It is not a conducive career for that. However, I did have the joy of helping many other people's children and that felt great too.
And, conversely, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted children enough to leave my marriage to have them. Thank God I did not, for all kinds of reasons.
I have no idea how single parents pull it off. I'd love to read about it!
Very interesting answers. Keep them coming.
I'll add that personally, I would never had had children. I never played house, never liked dolls, never dreamed about being a mother. And while I love motherhood now (mainly because of my parenting partner), I think that if I remained single, I would have had a very, happy, fulfilled life without children.
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