3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Eleanor D. Alspaugh tells us that her book, The Mommy-Go-Round is a warning about the reality of being a mom. That may be true - there are plenty of hijinks and crazy, far-too-genuine stories from Eleanor's life here, but it also highlights some wonderful moments, moments that make it clear Eleanor has been a great mom. The book absolutely does, however, succeed at ensuring the reader doesn't go into parenthood with rose tinted glasses.
Eleanor has quite the wild experience with kids. It isn't til after she's 30 that she has her first kid, Holly, and it's another 4 years before she has a miscarriage, followed by a second daughter Julianne, born on Eleanor's mom's birthday! Her and her husband decide to have a third child two years after Jul, when Eleanor is now 37, and are blown away when Candace is actually a boy (upon discovering this, they name him Nathan, he wasn't forever cursed with being named Candace). Even their individual stories are amazing - Holly was born with tears in her windpipe and had to stay in the hospital even after Eleanor left, returning every 4 hours to feed her to be able to spend some time with her. During pregnancy with Juliane, they go with the flow and do all the recommended tests, finding out she may be a Down syndrome child, but a later test dismisses that possibility entirely. The surprise of Nathan being a boy is due to doing the exact opposite during his birth, ignoring needless tests and instead leaving things up to God.
Aside from the birth of all 3 of her kids, the book also touches on her own childhood and pre-parenthood life at times, but mostly dives into things that happened with her kids. This includes her first daughter wanting a sister, then getting one and demanding she be sent back, getting her kids to do chores thanks to an N'Sync chore board, explaining Santa to her youngest kid Nathan, the story behind "you'll have more fun in life if you like cheese", the rapid deterioration of attitudes (and grades!) a week or two into the school year, learning to drive and so much more. This is all done through chapters that jump around in time, but because they're essentially stories of things that happened it's more enjoyable this way and not confusing in the least.
The writing style used is akin to talking to a friend. It's very energetic and casual, as if actually hearing her tell the tales. While some books get annoying when they frequently use multiple exclamation points or all capital letters to emphasize points, it actually worked really well here for me (a fellow flinger of exclamation points and dabbler in caps lock communication). The book is chock full of relatable, hilarious things, so much so that I actually read a few of them out loud to share the laughs, although the last few chapters do get more serious. There are also some family photos throughout the book that relate to what's going on, and it's a great way to connect even more with Eleanor and her family. The only negatives to the storytelling were that it could have used a bit of editing and there's one particular story that's used almost word for word in two different chapters far apart from one another. It's less than a page and text surrounding the story is different, however, so it's at least discussed differently.
The Mommy-Go-Round was a rather enjoyable read, and as I said, a very relatable one. Eleanor lets us into her family and is very genuine, open and accommodating in doing so. The book gets 3 out of 4 stars, and I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who's thinking about becoming a parent or who already is one. Kids should read it too, so maybe they can avoid the "parental curse" - when a child behaves the way their parent did when they were a child, parental karma!
******
The Mommy-Go-Round
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like CataclysmicKnight's review? Post a comment saying so!
