Is this a book about motherhood

I like this book.

Reading this book is like witnessing the slow yet quickly progressing assimilation of Wednesday into the tribe of UES primates. She’s of course, not apologetic about this change. She needs to change. She wants to change. Since she needs to live. Since she has to. Since the longing to belong rests in the very nature of her as a primate. Noting wrong with it.

However, the kind of bonds developed after Wednesday lost Daphne is kind of disturbing.

There are many kinds of losses. Bankruptcy. Failure of plastic surgeries. Divorce. Yet such losses don’t bring people together and as a matter of fact estrange them. Wednesday talks about how Botox numbs women’s facial cells and does not allow them to make facial expressions as a result. That’s tragic but no one seems to be sympathetic about it, including Wednesday, since it’s ultimately one’s decision.

And then there’s the loss of a child. This is the kind of loss that brings people (or at least women) together. Women open their arms, open up their hearts, and allow themselves to be vulnerable.

The difference between these two kinds of losses is quite obvious. The former makes you lose face, prestige, you name it, for it essentially is tied with your personal capability and social standing. The latter happens outside of your control (but what about some bankruptcy though?) and thus does not say anything about you.

This understanding makes what Wednesday writes as follows sound rather funny, “I thought my loss would widen the chasm between me and them, but it closed it. The had lost, too (224).”

Wednesday observed and devoted around two pages to the women who were most guarded against the intruders (new incomers to the UES) and who became the warmest after hearing of her loss. It’s ridiculous. On a cynical note, it’s almost as if the loss of children too is one of the tests to be like them. Now she’s equipped with yet another language/weapon.

I also question another statement Wednesday made, “this shared history of interdependence, of tendering and caring, might explain the unique capacity women have for deep friendship with other women (236).” What does she mean by unique? Unique as in different from the friendship formed among men? And what does she mean by “tendering and caring”? Which is only manifested at a superficial level (or significant level from a social perspective in the context of UES) after Wednesday lost Daphne.

From another perspective, is it the case that the more intense hazing is, the stronger the bonds would be once the bonds were built? The intense hazing process only signifies the clear boundaries between insiders and outsiders and once one is scanned and accepted, s/he is accepted with full embrace.

Makes me think of fraternities. And sororities.

I don’t know what to make of the final part of the book, where Wednesday lands on the encounter with the Queen of the Queen Bee. What does it mean? What is it supposed to mean? This scene parallels with that at the playdate scheduled to see if her son was qualified for the nursery school, but does it have the same connotation? It feels very similar in that the son magically “saves” the situation by violating the fundamental social rules, but it feels different in that I couldn’t help but feel Wednesday’s pride in the latter scenario. She’s not afraid of the queen. She’s become one of them. She’s not afraid.

It’s interesting to see in the interview section (I think) that Wednesday mentioned that she thought of the book as one contribution to the literature of motherhood. I am thinking of Rachel Zucker’s “Mothers”, another book about motherhood that I’ve read this year. The word “motherhood” does not scream until really that chapter about Daphne, and in previous chapters while there were activities pertaining to the role of Wednesday as a mother, to me they scream “womanhood” and “class” much louder. It seems that motherhood is but a lens through which Wednesday explores the living of UES female primates.

I do not think Wednesday is hypocritical, even though at times what she says is amusing (which might arise from my own lack of knowledge). I think she’s honest, and, yes, unapologetic about her experience and feelings. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if she feels exactly the same way as she writes about the friendship forged after the loss of Daphne, or does she say so such that her friends in the club would not hate her and she would not be a traitor after all.