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Praise for Baby Love

“In this powerful new memoir, Walker tells of her physical and emotional journey toward motherhood, poignantly reflecting on the ambivalence that has delayed her dream of having a child for years. Walker’s story is accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit and warmth." --Publishers Weekly

“Walker thoughtfully deconstructs the struggle of many women who, though weaned on the idea of a woman’s right to choice, have viewed motherhood ‘with more than a little suspicion.’ Not surprisingly, she finds that her primal, unconditional love for her newborn son trumps all ideological concerns.”--Entertainment Weekly

“A thoughtful and amusing play-by-play of pregnancy and birth, investigating the difference between the theory surrounding motherhood and the scary, messy, snuggly practice of it.” --The Washington Post Book World

“Walker uses her sharp intelligence to examine the joyful, terrifying journey to parenthood and the complex roles of mother and child. As Walker, now 37, begins her pregnancy in 2004, she is torn between the desire to be a loving daughter—to a brilliant, difficult woman who has her own ambivalence about motherhood—and the desire to love unconditionally as a mom. You know she’ll do just fine embracing motherhood, in all its sloppy, intimate selflessness and glory.” --People

"With honesty, passion, intelligence, wisdom, and insight, Rebecca Walker tracks her journey from experiencing a deep but conflicted biological urge for a child to her exquisitely unambivalent, joyous commitment to motherhood. Along the way, she reexamines her own family relationships, and shares her fears, worries, and eventual understanding about what is ultimately important in life and love. Beautifully written, Babylove will resonate with any woman who has fallen in love with her baby or is wrestling with choosing motherhood." -- Miriam Arond, Editor-in-Chief of Child magazine

"Walker sways on a kind of scary, sublime suspension bridge, stretched between being somebody's child and becoming somebody's mother, and turning her fiercely compassionate intelligence to both. Thanks to her unique vision, the familiar views along the way become nothing short of astounding." --Catherine Newman, author of Waiting for Birdy

"Those of us who have followed Rebecca Walker have come to expect a brilliant journey, one that locates the balance between reason and emotion, blood and sinew. Baby Love does not disappoint. As a daughter, but most of all as a mother I read this book and was transformed." --Asha Bandele, author of The Prisoner's Wife

"In Baby Love, Rebecca Walker has shone a bright light on the Ambivalent Generation. Moving, wise, and deeply honest, Baby Love has illuminated a crucial question for our times." --Danzy Senna, author of Symptomatic

Baby Love is a gorgeous memoir, confessional in the most universal of ways. In richly-detailed prose, Walker takes us on her journey toward motherhood, and womanhood, and, ultimately, personhood, with unflinching honesty and raw, painfully beautiful storytelling. --Alisa Valdes, author of Make Him Look Good

Hailed by Time Magazine as one of the most influential American leaders under forty, Rebecca Walker is a bestselling memoirist (Black, White and Jewish) with a compelling voice and view of the world. With Baby Love, her wise, thought-provoking, and above all engaging book about the decision to have a child after a lifetime of uncertainty, she has written not just a memoir of her own pregnancy, but a book about motherhood for a new generation.

Rebecca Walker is a member of a watershed generation of women, the first to take Roe v. Wade for granted, the first to be believe that no profession or lifestyle was unattainable. But beneath the promise of “having it all” were mixed messages about motherhood: a woman risked being emotionally drained and intellectually stunted, of losing herself in the process of caring for another. As Walker’s entertaining and insightful memoir attests, these messages created a new kind of struggle for many young women, and the decision to have a child became fraught with ambivalence.

For fifteen years Walker recognized a persistent yearning to have a baby, but consistently made choices that took her further and further away from her goal. As a result, she almost missed what she now knows to be the single most meaningful experience of her life.In this very smart memoir of her pregnancy at age 34 and the decisions leading up to it, Walker explores some of the larger sociological trends of her generation including the search for a suitable partner, bisexuality, advancing reproductive technology, and the arduous demands of creating an intact family as a child of divorce.

Walker’s journey of motherhood is not just one of physical evolution, but also of the emotional and spiritual transformation from ambivalence to certainty to unconditional love. It’s the story of the birth of her son, as well as the tale of an era—an insightful, moving, and entertaining memoir by a writer who has proven herself to be an important voice.