What surprised me most when I became a mother was how unfeasibly demanding the job was. This work was 24/7, three six five, and nobody even acknowledged that it was work, nor that mothers were doing it, that they were doing all of it, all of the time. You’re welcome, human race.
How had I not seen this coming? Why hadn’t I read about it? Granted, there was a big baby-shaped hole in my reading life, but still. There are mothers in literary fiction, yes, but they are generally assessed as good mothers or bad ones. Where are the novels about being the mother?
