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There is a new book out, about a topic that seems to be newly OK to talk about- women who don’t really want kids, and couples who really don’t want to, or shouldn’t be, parents. For a long time, women and couples who didn’t want kids were made to feel like something was wrong with them or her, that they were selfish or wrong in some way. This book explores what happens when a couple is suddenly thrust into parenting an older child.
A little about the book Everybody Has Everything–
“What happens when the tidy, prosperous life of an urban couple is turned inside out by a tragedy with unexpected consequences? After a car crash leaves their friend Marcus dead and his wife Sarah in a coma, Ana and James are shocked to discover that they have become the legal guardians of a 2.5 year-old, Finn. Finn’s crash-landing in their lives throws into high relief deeply rooted, and sometimes long-hidden, truths about themselves, both individually and as a couple. Several chaotic, poignant, and life-changing weeks as a most unusual family give rise to an often unasked question: Can everyone be a parent?
Combining a pitch-perfect, whip-smart dissection of contemporary urban life with a fresh and perceptive examination of our individual and collective ambivalence towards parenthood, Katrina Onstad’s Everybody Has Everything balances tragedy and comedy with verve and flair.
I read this book while traveling, over about a day and a half in planes and trains (you have to do something to kill time, and reading is my favorite option). It was a fast and easy read, on an interesting topic. I didn’t like the characters, James and Ana, very much. They seemed to me to be a couple that should not even be married to each other. Ana was more honest with her feelings of not wanting to be a parent, and missed her friend Sarah honestly and regularly. James seemed sneaky, sly, and selfish at every opportunity, and I didn’t understand his relationship with Finn. It was strained and suspicious even as to why it started and why it continued, and why he felt the need to keep it a secret. Uncomfortable at times, even. He also claimed Finn as his son repeatedly, which made me sick to my stomach as a mother. Claiming a child as your own while his mother, supposedly your friend, struggles for life in a hospital bed was so creepy and wrong.
The characters, while not likable to me, were relatable. We all know people like James, smart, cocky, who think they own the world and that they can do whatever they want with no consequences. We all know people who choose not to be parents, or not to be married, or should not be married or parents.
We all know that not everyone is cracked up to be a parent. Lots of people who have children are not parents in any sense of the word other then they have a child, and having a child doesn’t mean it was a good idea to have done so. I thought it was interesting that Ana realized she was not “parent material” and didn’t really want that for her life.
The other interesting point for me was child services coming in and berating Ana for having a demanding job with long hours, making her feel badly for it, when she had no children and wanted none, because she was now the (hopefully temporary) guardian to Finn was right to the heart of matters. The sexism of society, and of women toward other women, always surprises me in this day and age, and even in fiction (because you know that is just what would have happened in real life).
This is a good summer beach or traveling read. Light, quick, and an easy read, with an interesting topic and relatable characters.
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