The emotion in this book's title is raw and unsettling. Some readers may find it jarring—the idea that a parent could feel devoured by a child, especially one desired and loved, showered with affection and tenderness. Yet we cannot ignore what those same parents also feel: anger, rage, irritation, suffocation, a crushing sense of negativity expressed through reactions both gentle and harsh. This book teaches us to name the real difficulties we face in raising children, to trace their roots, and—mercifully—to find some ways through.
It is vital to acknowledge that no loving relationship built on responsibility—not even the bond between parent and child—is free from a darker current that can harden into resentment or hatred. Left unexamined, these feelings make the relationship harder still, sometimes destructive. But Nemet-Pier goes further. She exposes how modern society intensifies the central contradiction every child embodies: a child both enables and thwarts a parent's self-realization. She shows how society might better support families through these ordinary struggles. The book becomes a lifeline—permission to recognize, accept, and finally tame the ambivalence that storybooks always assign to wicked stepmothers but that actually dwells, inevitably, in every parent's heart.
Cristina Tersigni, 2006