Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion by Jean H. Baker

from goodreads

2 stars

Christmas is coming soon! Every year that I am a parent I feel less excited and geared up for Christmas. It's not that I don't like Christmas, I do. I think it is the fact that I am doing everything now. My parents gave me a lovely Christmas experience every year. My mom would bake, we would have delicious food with all the trimmings. We had nice gifts. Not overly extravagant or plentiful, but nice. We would all sing Christmas Carols together as mom played the piano. We would go tobogganing. It would be a fun time of love, friendship and memories.

Flash forward to now and I am the person who is supposed to be presenting this Christmas magic and honestly I don't have the inclination. I don't feel like baking for hours on end. I don't feel like making a turkey with all the trimmings. I don't feel like getting anyone any presents (though I am not heartless and I do). And I don't prioritise practice time so I am not as good as my mom so their is rarely Carol singing. Tobaganning is fun but it sucks when you have to drive to a snow hill instead of having it right outside your front door (like my childhood home.) But, I guess this is when I can think, what is my energy level and what little bit of magic can I sprinkle into my kids experiences.

Hopefully in a few years when I don't have a crazy baby that constantly puts things in his mouth and when I feel like I am more put together I will feel more excited for the Christmas season and put more effort into making it super special for my family. Until then, well, at least we have a tree!

Synopsis

This is a biography on the woman who was the face of the early birth control movement in the United States.

My Thoughts

This book was weird. I loved it, I loathed it, I became apathetic to it.

The first few chapters that dealt with Sanger's early life I found really interesting. I liked learning about the events that caused her to pick up the crusade of birth control. I am profoundly grateful for the women who did. I am definitely a woman who has taken advantage of the ability to choose when to have children and how many. It is such a foreign concept to me, living now, that birth control could ever been seen as something not normal. But the obstacles men put up against birth control was crazy. Their arguments didn't even make sense! It was heartbreaking hearing about the women who were told by their doctors not to have any more children but where denied the tools and knowledge on how to prevent further pregnancies.

This book did a good job and delving into these contrary policies and showing how commonsense birth control was and how birth control was really a class thing.

If Baker had just left the book at this, the beginnings of the birth control movement, this would have been a fantastic read. Unfortunately she continued into the rest of Sanger's life. The writing was good. The subject I found boring. Perhaps if I was more inline with some of Sanger's other views such as open marriage and eugenics I would have found more interest. But since both those practices are abhorrent to me I just kept flicking the pages waiting for the book to end. I just didn't care about her private life. I think she was egocentric and catty. So perhaps the rating I gave should be higher, because you can't fault the author on the life of their subject. I just didn't care for it and the book just dragged on and on and on. Like I never thought it was going to end.

While it lost the passion it had at the beginning this was a quasi worth while read. If you are going to read it just read the first few chapters. They are full of interest and vitality. Otherwise it might be worth getting a different title if you want to learn about the birth control movement as a whole.