Author - Rebecca Walker: Baby Love

I haven’t read this memoir yet but it’s high on my list for a variety of reasons, mainly because I’m such a fan of both Rebecca Walker’s and her mother’s, Alice Walker, work. Although she doesn’t mention her mother by name, she apparently doesn’t have a lot of kind words regarding her childhood. Aside from this, the book mainly deals with our generation’s many uncertainties. The book begins with the day Rebecca’s pregnancy is confirmed and ends as she and her partner bring their son home. Rebecca poignantly tells of her difficult journey to motherhood and reflects on her ambivalence regarding having children. Like many of us, she was raised to focus on attaining what many of our mothers, due to social conditions, could not. Having children was a bit more secondary.

The book recounts her mother’s opposition to Rebecca’s decision to have a baby and a confrontation regarding Rebecca’s account of their relationship in her previous book, Black, White and Jewish. Her mother ends their relationship and removes Rebecca from her will.

Rebecca faces serious complications during her pregnancy and distrusting of Western medicine, she finds herself overdosing on Google in her endless search for information. After all this Rebecca finds she’s changed her mind on many of her longstanding beliefs: she’s now a meat eater, in a committed relationship and a mom.

It sounds like an amazing journey that makes for great reading. Buy Baby Love at amazon.com.