During a recent wait in my doctor’s office, I browsed through Maclean’s magazine. I found a two-page article by the Canadian journalist Rebecca Eckler. The article was an excerpt from her book, Wiped! Life with a Pint-Sized Dictator, in which she chronicles her first two years as a parent.
My reaction was visceral. I’m sure my blood pressure rose and my face flushed. Here is an apparently healthy woman with one, apparently healthy child. She has a committed partner and a nanny. Yet she seems completely dumbfounded, bored and exasperated by parenting. She calls her daughter “Devil Child”.
I know this is supposed to be hip and funny. Maybe I’m neither, but I found her portrayal of parenting irritating, sad, and not particularly newsworthy. I haven’t read the book, to be fair, but I sent Maclean’s a letter. They may not publish it, but I will.
To the editors,
Rebecca Eckler (April 2) seems all but defeated by parenting her only child. She has a nanny and a partner who is engaged, yet she can’t seem to manage an average day with her daughter, or “Devil Child” as her baby is now known in Canada. I have a few suggestions that may help Ms. Eckler.
First, she might speak with single parents, especially those who cannot afford a nanny, to understand how much more difficult her life might be without hired help or a partner to call a half-dozen times each day. Ms. Eckler might also check with members of Multiple Births Canada to learn that parents successfully and, yes, happily, raise more than one baby at a time. If she really wanted insight into being “wiped”, she should visit a children’s hospital. Parents of sick and special needs kids could surely teach Ms. Eckler about exhaustion, perseverance, and perhaps even unconditional love. That Ms. Eckler’s experience of parenting should gain so much press is both infuriating and sad.
I read the book and it was one of the crassest, most appalling things I’ve ever read. The poor kid is going to grow up and read that her mother and father considered her to be nothing more than a serious annoyance to them from the time she was born. The book made me very, very angry. All those people out there with fertility problems … imagine how they’d feel reading Eckler calling her infant daughter a bitch for having then nerve of interfering with her sleep or not allowing her and her equally appalling spouse to go to expensive restaurants anymore.
I bought the book thinking it would be a fun read -I am a young first time mom too.
I actually found myself hating this woman!
How can anyone dare to complain -a whole books worth-about how hard it is being a mom when:
-You chose the kind of birth you wanted
-You chose not to breastfeed out of selfishness
-You have a full-time nanny since day one of your maternity leave
-You can go out- sleep etc…all day.
-Your fiance-husband -whatever- puts up with all this and more and seems to reward you for it
What’s next? A designer baby? I bet if she could she would have chosen one.
How can anyone write this and have any self-respect ? So superficial! If it was a fictitous account- a joke I would get it..you could find it funny. But its real!
I want my money back Fake Bridget Jones-Mommy version wanna be!
Check out her spelling here:
He said he didn’t love being on Friends (it was rushed, they just through him his dialogues two seconds before he had to read them in front of a studio audience.)
Catch it?
This women is a disgrace to all women. Disgusting. She should be ashamed of herself. My coworker read this book and she found it funny until she found out that it was a biography..that changed everything. It is not like some fictional characters where they are just flighty, Rebecca Eckler is just down right shallow, vain, irresponsible, and lacks maturity. It is like a child raising a child. I am glad I don’t have a “devil” like HER as my mother.
Also did anyone else catch that she claims to be 100 lbs. yet she is a size 6?? How is that even possible??
I liked this book. I am also a first time mom and thought it was interesting. I actually got information from it, like about postpartum. Postpartum is very serious and it doesn’t matter how many children you have it always seems like too much. That was why she was tired all the time and ended up getting a nanny. If you have never had postpartum you can’t comment on her mind set.
I haven’t read Wiped! yet, but I did read Knocked Up and have been a reader of her blog. Frankly, I enjoyed her honesty. I think most people are afraid of being as honest as she is about their life, for fear of being judged by “super-moms”. Who hasn’t thought some of the same things she has about their child at least once? Children and parents are not perfect.
Yes, single parents, parents of multiples or special needs children do have more difficult challenges to face. But that is not to say that she is not unlike many people out there.
Personally, I have fertility challenges. Knowing conceiving will be more difficult for me and that I will be so grateful once we do have children - does not make me think for a second that I won’t at some point be so frustrated, sleep deprived and in shock that i wouldn’t think that a screeching baby isn’t a little bit evil.