"When Megan Stack left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have a baby and work from her home in Beijing writing a book, she quickly realized that childcare and housework would consume the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned and babysat in her home and she grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies, medical and family crises. Hiring poor women had given Stack the ability to work while raising her children--but what ethical compromise had she made?
Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees' homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they'd been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility--and on the cost to the children who were left behind." Summary courtesy of Goodreads
I found this book interesting, but ultimately annoying. While I understand the point Stack is making with this book, I sometimes questioned her choices and motives. She makes the decision to have her baby in China, but then she writes about how dangerous it is there for children and how polluted so many things are. She struggles to eat organic, etc for the baby --- but of course, this isn't easy. She makes the choice to hire someone to help her with the housework, which turns into housework and childcare, but she still doesn't seem to be able to find time for herself to write. So, there is resentment. And yes, as expected, resentment towards her husband who doesn't know what she does all day and who should be doing more to help out at home.
When she and her husband move to India while she's pregnant with their second child, she makes the decision that they must hire more than one person to help with their households because it's very important to her to write her book. Her husband's salary gives them the ability to do this and at first, she's conflicted and then just takes it in stride. However, the women she hires have issues of their own, which makes Stack have resentment towards them. Then she questions herself . . . and then, she is "determined to confront the truth" and learn more about these women who have worked in her home. I was wondering why she didn't seem to make much effort to know much about them when they worked in her home --- for example, she never ventured to where they lived in their servants quarters.
The published notes that this "is a stunning memoir of four women and an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege." I wouldn't say it was stunning, although it's certainly a meditation on marriage, motherhood and privilege. I kept reading because I was curious, albeit annoyed some of the time, but by the end, I realized that this just wasn't the book for me. I was more curious about the women who worked for Stack, but seeing them through her journalistic eye, I felt that they were still unknown.
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