Four Stars

You might be familiar with Janet Mock. She has been a writer for People magazine (which I unapologetically read every week), and more recently has shared her story of being a trans woman of color in a feature for Marie Claire magazine. I first learned about her where I learn about many things that aren’t necessarily covered on CNN or in the New York Times: on Twitter. I’d see her comments retweeted by other people I follow, and learned about her book when it came out earlier this year. I had originally purchased Lena Dunham’s book to read this month, but exchanged it for this one because I realized I don’t really care what Lena Dunham has to say about things, but I do care what Ms. Mock has to say about things.

This book is a memoir that focuses mostly on her youth, starting with her memories as a young child in Hawaii, through moving to New York City for graduate school. Ms. Mock was assigned the gender male at birth, but never felt connected to that; she felt like a girl. Her story is fascinating, surprising, and at times heartbreaking. It can almost read like fiction, because it was difficult for me to realize that someone could experience what she did and come through it not just to survive, but to thrive.

Ms. Mock faced many disadvantages growing up, but she also recognizes that she had some things that other trans youth do not have. Early on she found her best friend Wendi, who was also trans, and helped her to not be alone at school. She is a very smart person and was able to earn a scholarship for college. Her family was supportive of her as she took more steps to make sure that her actions and appearance matched how she felt – she was not thrown out of her home when she shared her reality with her mother. That’s powerful.

Her writing about accepting who she is, and especially about what it means to be a ‘real’ woman, made a strong impression on me. This idea that we value trans people more if they ‘pass’ for cis people, or that someone is lying if they don’t share that they were assigned a different gender at birth, places cis as the center of ‘normal’ when in reality being cis is just common. This sentence, coming on the second-to-last page of the book, is one I want to embroider and hang on my wall: “We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people’s identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies.” Spot on.

I should say that I’m not used to Ms. Mock’s style of writing. I’ve read loads of memoirs, but most of them are written by comedians, and thus have a very different feel. I think she finds her stride about three chapters in (although who knows in what order she wrote the book), but I nearly stopped after the first chapter because the writing was so very … descriptive. At times I felt like there was some sort of adjective word count she felt she had to hit, that I was reading a book that suffered from a lot of ‘tell not show’ sentences. It’s not the type of writing I generally like to read, but the story behind all of those words was so interesting and powerful that either I figured out a way to accept the style, or it became less prominent as the book went on. No matter – I’m very glad I stuck with it.

I see two fellow Cannonballers have reviewed this book so far; their reviews actually reminded me that I wanted to pick up this book. Once again I chose the audio book route (at the end of the year I should put together a post comparing all the female-written and -read memoirs I’ve listened to this year) and am really happy I did.

As the other reviewers have pointed out, the focus of the book isn’t so much a behind-the-scenes SNL expose; yes that gets coverage as it is part of her life but it’s only part of her story. It’s interesting, it’s well-told, and it provides some insight into that world, but it was only about seven years of her life, so it makes sense to not spend the entire book on that time period.

Ms. Dratch strikes me as pretty laid back, cool lady. She’s funny, entertaining, and can write really well. She also strikes me as one of the most self-aware humans on the planet. Pretty close to the beginning of the book, she starts talking about the 30 rock ‘incident.’ I could hear the exhaustion in her voice, and I don’t blame her. I cannot imagine how frustrating and annoying (not to mention hurtful at times) it must be to be responsible for some hilarious roles and yet have her still most talked about role be ‘getting fired’ from 30 rock.

And to be clear – she’s really not hung up on it. She talks about it because we’re interested in it. But because the implication, the suggestion in hushed (and not so hushed) tones in the celebrity media, is that she lost out because she is not as attractive as Jane Krakowski, it’s repeatedly mentioned when Ms. Dratch’s name comes up. Can you imagine that something that was a bummer for you (losing a job because of a decision to have a different type of character in that position) becomes some giant (celebrity) news story about how you aren’t pretty enough? Ugh. She’s gracious in telling the story, and while others might be skeptical, I believe that she’s made her peace with it and really wishes the rest of us would just move on.

Some of the best parts of this memoir are her discussions about the types of work she is now offered and about her relationship with her son’s father John. Seriously, the entire final third of the book, while not really talking much at all about SNL or 30 Rock, is some of the best writing and the most interesting. I had dinner plans Monday night and was pretty annoyed that my friend showed up just as Ms. Dratch narrated that she’d just checked the pregnancy test and there were two stripes. I knew what was going to happen next (I mean, I knew she had a kid so assumed this was the start of that story), but the writing and the delivery of the words was so compelling I really did not want to turn it off.

I’d definitely recommend this book to others. It’s not particularly long (5 1/2 hours on audio; most of the books I’ve listened to have been between 6 and 8 hours) but it’s interesting, clever and sweet.

Full disclosure: when I first heard about this book I got annoyed for two reasons. The first was jealousy – “Oh man why did she get to write this book? I so could have written this book. Damn it.” The second was annoyance at the title – saying “I Can Barely Take Care of Myself” seems to play right into the stereotypes so many of those with children have about us childfree folks. I can take care of myself just fine and I STILL don’t want children. But as the author so kindly reminded me herself on twitter when I made such a comment, you really shouldn’t judge a book by its title.

Well, I’m no longer annoyed by the fact that she wrote this book before I could – because is it GOOD. Ms. Kirkman (a writer for Chelsea Lately) did a much better job with this material than I could have done. The book feels honest, self-aware and not obnoxious. Of course I’m probably her target audience (happily committed to the childfree life [link to my post on it here]) and I’m not sure what the Eileens of the world (Chapter 11 – man I’ve met many of them) will think of it. But screw that – who cares? It’s nice to read a book that doesn’t assume that every woman in her 30s without kids is just waiting to get pregnant.

I’m still annoyed at the title a bit to be honest, just because even though she spends a lot of time explaining why she really wouldn’t be the best parent, and even though this is (cringe) her truth, it’s still sort of frustrating that such an awesome book’s first impression is “No, you’re totally right, people who don’t want children are a little broken and just recognize that we aren’t as good at life as you parents are.” But that won’t keep me from recommending the content to all my friends (the ones with kids and the ones without).

The book gives us some of Ms. Kirkman’s background, although it doesn’t feel like a full-on memoir. I bought the book on Thursday and read about 40 pages. I wasn’t able to pick it up again until today (Sunday), and I basically read through the last 160 pages in one sitting. While the early chapters were interesting, she really gets into the meat of the different ways childfree folks find themselves in uncomfortable situations. So many people say (sometimes in the comments of articles Ms. Kirkman herself has written) ‘why do you non-reproducers feel the need to talk about your choice?’ We really, really don’t. But because (some, many, a lot of) people won’t accept no for an answer, we’re repeatedly ‘defending’ a position that is really only our (and our partner’s, if relevant) business. Sometimes it’s easier to just preemptively strike.

I don’t want to take away from the joy of any potential readers by spoiling too many of the great insights Ms. Kirkman shares, but here’s one of my favorites. She spends the better part of one chapter talking through this idea that having a child somehow makes someone selfless (the opposite of us selfish childfree folks) and this whole “I really didn’t know the meaning of life until I had a child” concept. I can’t do it justice here but she basically points out that all of these parents making those claims are essentially suggesting that they had no moral compass until they reproduced, which – huh. Interesting thing to admit. She also points out that many childfree folks are contributing to society in a selfless and meaningful way, such as contributing to charity and doing all sorts of things that people with young children may not have the time to do.

She also takes on such fun responses to “I’m not having children” as “But you’d be such a good mother!” and “It’s all worth it!” while addressing how amazingly insulting it is for some people to just assume they know someone better than they know themselves (the “you just think you don’t want kids” condescension). The liberties people take when they hear ‘no’ in response to ‘are you having children’ is mind-boggling, and Ms. Kirkman does a pretty great job in the Eileen chapter of pointing out how horrible and violated it can make us childfree folks feel. We actually DON’T owe anyone an explanation, and yet somehow we always end up having to defend our choices to people at cocktail parties and weddings even if we really would rather be talking about literally anything else. We also really don’t like being forced to essentially lie to try to make small talk easier for the person with the child who cannot understand

She does veer a little into a sort of ‘huh’ realm with what I think might be an ill-advised analogy in the last chapter but I do get what she’s aiming for. And it doesn’t take away from the rest of this well-written book. If you’re interested in hearing her perspective before committing to buying the book, check her out on the April 18 episode of Citizen Radio – it’s what convinced me that I really needed to read this book.

One last quote I’ll be keeping in my back pocket in case I find myself facing boorish folks at a cocktail party thinking I just rolled out of bed at noon: “I get up at seven on weekends because I love my free time. Not every childfree person sleeps late and parties all the time. I am still a grown-up.” Preach it.