Screaming on the Inside

Though this book is about women, for women, and occasionally contains inspiring anecdotes about women – I think it caused me to have a mini mental breakdown. Screaming on the Inside details the historical and social causes of our present roles as super-moms: working, over-parenting, home-making, and cooking. It tracks how mothers went from being unnecessary for raising children (centuries ago) to raising children being women’s only sacred duty. Jessica Grose looks at current phenomena, like momfluencers, lack of affordable child care in America, and social pressures that require us to work non-stop and look great doing it.

Though I agree with a lot that she says – that moms are overworked, under-supported, and un-appreciated – the reading experience was disheartening. It didn’t pump me up, as I think it was supposed to do, it didn’t make me want to rise up and make changes, but rather it made me feel like just a cog in an unjust system. It made my personal struggles, of which I’m so proud of overcoming, seem just a symptom of the patriarchy. I think the reason for this is that the book focused so much on the external difficulties instead of the internal experience for moms. It detailed what was happening on the outside without building us up on the inside. I didn’t come away with any tools to improve my life, but just with a sense of unfairness – which is a burden to me.

At the end, I’m unsure of who I’d recommend this book to. It’s clearly a book written for women, but we women already know this information in one form or another. The person it would most benefit – a man who undervalues women – would be the least likely to read it.