THE MOTHER CODE

A journalist chronicles how cultural ideas about genetics and inheritance affected her path to motherhood.

Ackerman writes that she “hesitated extra-long before choosing motherhood because, let’s be real, I was told that a mother’s life happens in a distant galaxy from a life without kids—one where I would be overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, and likely resentful of my partner if I was lucky enough to find one.” After years of caring for her half-brother, Adam—“born with a triple whammy of rare disorders”—and her mother, who was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, she initially felt too burnt out to consider motherhood. She also worried that her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s decisions to abandon their children might actually be what she calls “a glitch in my genetic code.” After several rounds of failed IVF with her partner, Rob, she trepidatiously consented to having a baby using a donor egg, all the while worrying whether her lack of genetic connection to her future child would compromise their resemblance to each other and, by extension, their bond. Ackerman is frank and vulnerable, voicing taboo truths that many parents experience but few are courageous enough to admit. At times, the book can lack cohesion, especially in its final chapters. Overall, though, it eloquently captures the author’s journey into motherhood’s great unknown.

A vivid memoir of one woman’s complex path to nontraditional motherhood.