Working Mothers and a Great Story by Karen S. Bell

I recently reviewed a novel that really spoke to me as a mother and a wife. That novel was Walking with Elephants by Karen S. Bell. I'm lucky today to have Karen on my blog talking about how she came up for the great story in Walking for Elephants and about the hard work of being a mother in today's society. Thank-you Karen!

I also admit I was going to give away my beloved review copy of this novel to help spread the word . . . but my book club convinced me not too. They all want to read the book too so I'm going to be passing it around book club instead. It will be a great book for us to talk about!

How did I come up with my story?
by Karen S. Bell

The most often asked question is how did I come up with my story? I can pinpoint a moment when the story’s underlying message hit me like a ton of-bricks–but I’ll get to that later. What drove me to write this novel–was how much I’ve seen change in the way of families and family life. Women have definitely become contributors to society in force but there have been many sacrifices because of that which have changed the bucolic nostalgia of the American stereotypical household.

Working women become working mothers and life becomes a juggling act but kids demands remain the same and satisfying those demands become major challenges. Along with women becoming more powerful, the divorce rate is so high that I believe that before long, a large sector of our culture will do away with marriage. Divorce is harrowing and expensive and the only winners are the lawyers, who I am sorry to say fuel the hatred even when children are involved.

I’m old enough to remember when most households remained intact, most women stayed home, and neighbors were friendly. We are isolated now from one another, overworked with demanding jobs and running households part time. In suburbia, after long commutes mothers get into cars and remain there during most of their discretionary time, carpooling or grocery shopping.

I applaud the working mother who manages it all–but I think they need help. I think that corporate America and women can be creative about being able to mother full time and find fulfilling employment that provides the now necessary second income. How? Maybe job sharing is the answer, maybe there is another idea out there. Much longer maternity leave. Supportive and mentoring women at work who help each other when kids’ need mommy today and mommy does not have to take a vacation day to provide that nurturing. Somehow we have to give a nod to yesteryear, stop for a moment and take a beat and reassess.

Raising children is so important. They are our future, they need to nurtured by a parent not a caregiver. We need to imprint on our children. Make them all they can be with mom and dad yelling on the sidelines, not stuck in front of a computer somewhere.

Let’s take back our families AND be workers but we have to figure out how to do it. And I really haven’t a clue how to get it done but I have some ideas.

What was my aha moment for this book? When I came upon a woman pumping her breast in the ladies room at work. I thought how sad that there is a baby crying some where and mommy isn’t there to provide.

Maybe we can come to a place in this country where mommy and baby could be at work together.

For more great discussion of Walking with Elephants, check out Karen Bell's blog at http://karensbell.com/blog1/

Walking with Elephants by Karen S. Bell

My posting for this wonderful novel comes a bit late. A terrible flu has struck my family which led for at least two of us at a time to be ill for the past week and a half. I had a high fever for four days myself. Add to that the Blizzard of 2011 (we’re right on the Lake Michigan shore and got a lot of snow!) and some strange happenings at my work, and therefore, not much activity has been happening on my blog as of late.

Walking with Elephants is a novel that really spoke to me. Suze Hall is a middle aged woman that has hit a crisis in her life. Her three children are all in school, with the eldest in college. Her husband, Bob, is a college professor. Suze herself is back in the workplace as an editor after being out of the game for years as a stay-at-home mother. Suze finds herself stressed out to the max. Her nemesis at work, Wanda, has just been promoted to be her boss. Suze is still expected to have dinner on the table and to perform all of her stay-at-home Mom duties, although she is now a full time worker. Bob has decided to take a six-month sabbatical in Australia without asking Suze, and Suze’s college sweetheart, David, has suddenly made reappearance in her life. Will Suze be able to navigate life as a modern day woman and be able to pull it all together?

I loved this book and thought that it perfectly summed up many of the problems that I face and that I know a lot of my fellow mothers also face. The novel is actually set in the 1990’s and Suze is actually more of a contemporary of my mother who was also born in 1950’s, married in the 1970’s, and had teenage children in the 1990’s. That led to some differences between how things are handled in marriages I think, but the problems are mostly the same.

First of all, what about Bob? Bob is a loving husband, but he is also a clueless husband. After getting home from working all day, Bob sits down on the couch with a beverage in one hand, and a remote in the other and relaxes while he shouts to Suze for dinner. Suze has also just returned from work and tries to hurry up and get something ready for dinner for her hungry husband and kids who provide no assistance. All I can say is thank goodness I am married to a modern caring and sensitive man who at least takes the baby while I cook dinner and knows that if he shouts for it while watching TV, he is likely not going to get any dinner. Are any of you married to a “Bob?”

Bob also is clueless about Suze when he takes a sabbatical in Australia and leaves his family for six months. It seems like such a major decision should have been a family decision instead of a personal one. Suze feels that way, but doesn’t seem to be able to tell Bob this and how she finds her own career to be important too until Bob is already gone. Bob and Suze have major communication problems, but luckily they both work on it throughout the course of the novel.

Suze feels the inner turmoil that most modern mothers face. She wanted to be a good mother so she stayed home with her children, but her career suffered from this fact. In her work place, Suze is targeted by Wanda, a woman who chose career over family. Wanda does not appreciate the fact that Suze does well at her job and has managed to have a family. She switches Suze to “art” something Suze knows nothing about in hopes that Suze will fail. Elliot, Suze’s best friend at work, tries to help Suze out, but she is able to help herself when she runs into David, her ex-college boyfriend who has become a world renowned artist. With Bob gone in Australia, will Suze be able to handle meeting the love of her life again?

Suze also has a great relationship with her friend Marcia. Marcia appears to have it all, except for the fact that she hasn’t found her own true love. Suze is able to talk about her problems and about problems that all women face with Marcia.

Walking with Elephants not only has a great plot, but I love the style of writing in this book. Karen S. Bell has a fun and witty style of writing. I couldn’t put this book down and whipped through it quickly.

It also spoke personally to me as I have a hard time trying to make everything go. I want to stay home with my kids, but I also love being an engineer. I work part-time and there never seems to be enough time in the day to be able to focus on being a mother or on being a top-notch engineer. Engineering is a man’s world and the only few women on top in my career are women without families. Sometimes I have been made to feel that I’ve thrown my career away by having kids, but on the same topic, you get from the other side that you are a bad mother for not focusing totally on your kids and staying at home. You can’t win!

On that topic, I love this quote in Walking with Elephants, “What if along with this visibility, the role of mother was considered just as vital; just as important? What if motherhood was a valid experience to put on a resume? What if telecommuting made it possible to stay at home and be an executive? What if women could put their children in schools near their work? Nursed them in their offices? What if women were given a paid maternity leave of two-years so they cold imprint their moral character on their children and still keep their jobs? . . . . And countless other innovations that would be created from women’s needs and wants?”

Go Suze Hall – I want these innovations! I thought my work was great letting me work part-time from home, but only this week I was fired and not fired on the same day solely because I was a part-time person. A few years ago all part-time people were fired, and they all were mothers who had gone down to part-time to be able to spend more time with their children. I’ve also realized I won’t be advancing in my career until I am full-time again. Have any of you faced similar problems and situations?

Overall, I really loved this book. I think it was a great story and it brought up great topics. I think it would be a great book-club book.

This book review is part of the TLC Book Tours.

Book Source: A review copy from Literary Road Press. Thank-you!