Thank you for Visiting

This book club provided an opportunity to discuss books with authors from 2009 - 2013. I like to think we were a group of daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, well... women finding time to meet while juggling daily life. I hope you enjoy exploring The Manic Mommies Book Club Archives. We read 46 books over the years, with audio or written author discussions for each book read documented on this blog. Note: The audio archives are no longer available on iTunes. ~ with kindness & gratitude, Mari

MMBC8: Waiting for Daisy - discussion recap


The Manic Mommy Book Club met last week to discuss Waiting for Daisy. With ten women on the call, from across the country, we had a lively discussion. One might think we were old friends having dinner together or a book club with a long history. We had so much to talk about.

Waiting for Daisy is a memoir, written by Peggy Orenstein. Her story begins when she tells her new husband that she’s not sure she ever wants to be a mother. It ends six years later after she’s done almost everything humanly possible to achieve that goal, from fertility sex to escalating infertility treatments to forays into international adoption. (source: author website)

Jumping right in, our discussion became personal quickly as we discussed our overall impression of the book, sharing the struggles of motherhood and the expectations we put on ourselves (and those put upon us). We all enjoyed the book and felt a bond with Peggy. We loved her writing style and the emotions carried off each page, tugging at our hearts.

We talked about our own quests for motherhood, if it was planned on unexpected. Some of us talked openly about the decision to put off becoming a parent for years, only to face the challenges of infertility. Most of us who feel we are in control of our lives, we want to neatly ‘check the box’ as we move through life and infertility is a journey no one plans for.

At the beginning of the book the author tells a story about an evening out with friends. She was amazed to find everyone talking about their children, which made us wonder how the author feels now that she has children of her own. We were in agreement that its easy to talk about our children and often have to tell ourselves ‘tonight I’m not going to talk about my kids’, only to talk about them most of the night. One member of our book club mentioned she looks forward to travelling for work, it’s not expected that she talk about her family and she can take a brief respite from parenting.

Join in the discussion:
- Looking back, are you the parent you thought you would be?
- If you read along with us, please share your thoughts about the book.

There are so many pages in the book that touched our hearts, a few tears were shed and we all agree that we highly recommend this book. Our next book selection is The Wednesday Sisters. We will be discussing this book live, with the author, on November 7th. Watch for details in the upcoming weeks.