📚 Book review: The Push - Ashley Audrain

Being father to two girls, this book shook me to the bones. I think there are some places parents never really go to in their minds or wonder “how will this feel”.

“The Push” is a book I started loosely reading from its Kindle sample and I couldn’t stop afterwards. It’s the story of a woman who becomes a mom and has to face a situation a parent should never go through.

From the moment she’s born, the woman feels completely detached from her daughter . That’s when the struggle begins. A mother, who’s thought of having the role to nurture, love and raise a human being cannot perform these actions in the story. On her side, the husband with a 9-5 schedule comes home after work and becomes the only one having an emotional link to their daughter.

“The Push” manifests a raw representation of what is to give birth and become a parent. There’s a quote I cannot forget which is when the main character (the woman)  realizes after 2 years of parenting how important and critical her body is to her family. Not her ambitions as a woman or career desire. Just the body that had tolerated endless days and nights raising this kid.

The book left two persisting thoughts in my mind. How are we (men) responsible to keep supporting this idea of women becoming the one and only responsible to raise a child? and how much “baggage”, maybe from previous generations and relatives, comes along when a human being is born.