This Woman's Work

There’s a new book out by Soleil Moon Frye called Happy Chaos: From Punky to Parenting and My Perfectly Imperfect Adventures in Between . I picked it up at the library and got about half-way through before it dawned on me that I was a childless woman reading a book of parenting advice from Punky Brewster. And not even deep parenting advice. It’s all, do what feels right and tomorrow’s another day. She does talk a little bit about the refrigerator episode of Punky, so that’s a point in her favor.

It’s a sweet little book, culled from her blog and filled in with anecdotes about her hippie childhood, but she must have been defiantly uncurious about childbirth before her first child. She mentions being shocked about several parts of childbirth & rearing that I would have thought were pretty common knowledge, like the fact that some women poop during delivery. I don’t know why her friends didn’t fill her in on that tidbit, because my friends have always listed it as one of the top talking points when discussing labor.

And I know I’m probably not going to ever have to make this call, but I’m not thinking that I want a football team worth of people in a delivery room with me. Soleil did, of course, including family and old friends and her birthing coaches Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. Demi Moore apparently gives a great leg massage during labor. I’m thinking I’ll use Ricki Lake for my doula and Demi for my labor coach and George Clooney can be my focus object. And Soleil talked about music for the labor, how you would want tribal music for the hard labor and soft music for the resting times, but it seems like it would be hard to switch them on and off during contractions, so I think I’ll need Jane’s Addiction and James Taylor in the room with me playing live as the mood dictates. I’m sure the doctor can fit in there somewhere. My (hypothetical) husband can watch the game in the lobby – From that distance; I won’t be able to bite him (Hi, Gina. (((Waving)))).