A Mom for All Seasons and Other Essays is a strange little book. For a full time mom, the essays are full of little snippets that will leave you with an understanding smile on your face. Yep, you’ve been there, done that. And now finally someone has put into words all of those conflicting joys and trials that make you feel whole.

In contrast, if you’re someone without children like me, you might just find yourself with a little smirk forming on your face as you think “Yep, reason 1001 why I don’t have children.”

I am a confirmed non-parent. I love kids, so long as they are not mine. I’m one of those people who, if I could skip straight to grandmom, I’d do it. I love to play with them, but the second the bottom lip starts trembling to signal an earth-shattering cry or that diaper needs to be fumigated, I’m handing them off. But I have several friends who are stay-at-home moms, and we often talk about how different things are between us.

And it is these conversations that let me appreciate Livingston’s book. Because reading this book is sort of like accidentally finding my mother’s “Handbook” that she would joke around about. The one that all mothers are given upon having a child. The one you are not supposed to see UNTIL you give birth, lest your non-birthing mind scare you away.

Livingston’s first essay, The Sweet Noises of Youth, talks about the impact of motherhood on a woman’s private time. “Before I had children, solitude and silence were my constant companions. But now I crave them sometimes even more passionately that I desire a nap or a slice of pizza.” But when her husband takes the boys out of the house and she finally succeeds and getting some peace and quiet, she realizes that she misses the comforting noises of her children. I’m reminded of a comment my friend made during a phone conversation while her own two boys were raising a ruckus. “I’m fine when they’re screaming. It’s when they get quiet I get worried.” My overly logical, non-maternal mind can’t grasp that. But every mother knows this to be true.

This is the odd thing regarding the essays. Non-mothers will read many of these and think “I couldn’t live like that.” While mothers will read them and say “that is exactly the way it is.” The essay Trust Me is an example of this. Livingston describes the mental shift that occurs upon having a child. “Overnight, upon giving birth, there are very few people you totally trust anymore. Upon giving birth, many of us suddenly stop trusting our closest friends, our own mother, our mother-in-law, even…if we’re honest…some of us, our husband.”

Again, I have seen this to be true. Just as Livingston explains, who you trust becomes a strange patchwork of instinct and chance. When one of my friends gave birth to her first daughter, she couldn’t let anyone else hold her because the baby would start crying (as they are prone to do when mommie is not in clutching distance). One day, I took the baby for a moment so she could free her hands to do something. The baby looked up at me, cooed, and went back to sleep. Suddenly, I was the only person in the universe that she would willingly hand the child to.

There is a hint of longing in Livingston’s work, as if there is a small bit of her that misses what it was like before she had children. She even addresses it openly in the last essay Identity Theft. It is this longing, however, that makes her book meaningful. Because that hint of longing is overshadowed by her obvious love of the entire mothering experience. While she may occasionally miss the person she was before having children, she has embraced the person she has become. “…but we’re also the proud recipients of a new and glorious self, one defined and enhanced by the best name on earth: Mother.”

If I had read this book in the days before my friends had children, I would have completely dismissed it in a fit of feminist rage. And I would have been wrong to do so, because this book isn’t written for me. It’s written for other mothers who can understand and appreciate the truisms in it. This is the kind of book you give as a present to your own mother or to your friends with children. They will appreciate it for what it is: an honest reflection of their own lives. For the rest of us, it may seem like eavesdropping on a conversation we aren't supposed to hear.