Catherine Gives Us a New Perspective on Motherhood

If you’re a parent in your 30s or 40s, chances you read one or two books on child development, emotional intelligence, or whatever new concept Instagram-certified psychologists are currently selling. And sure, who doesn’t want to be a great mother or father? But aren’t we asking a bit too much of ourselves? Or, more precisely, isn’t this time and society expecting far too much from parents?

Do we really have to bend our entire lives to fit the routine of a two-year-old? Do we need to optimize every reaction, emotion, and bedtime ritual?

If you’re tired of trying to be the “good-enough” mother and you’re looking for a more chilling, liberating perspective on parenting, The Book of Mother is for you. It’s seriously refreshing for parents and very French, too.

What do French do differently?

You’ve probably noticed something unsettling about French family films: French family life is never normal. It’s intimate, intense, emotionally literate - and somehow deeply, impressively f*cked up. Everyone loves each other, everyone wounds each other, and nobody is going to therapy soon enough.

Take François Ozon and his family dramas. There is always something messy and bold going on. You rarely see a traditional family unit, and even when you do, he pulls it apart and takes you somewhere darker. He digs into interconnections, hidden behaviors, and stories far beyond the clean, smiling picture of a “perfect” family.

Under a magnifying glass

Violaine Huisman does something similar in The Book of Mother. At first glance, we’re presented with an elegant, upper-class setup: mother, father, two beautiful daughters, Parisian polish. But Huisman has zero interest in appearances. She zooms in immediately, microscope in hand, and drops us straight into the chaos. Slowly, methodically, she lets us absorb the shock of her mother Catherine’s behavior, only to later reveal that the father, supposedly the quiet and stable one, may have been the true architect of the family’s madness.

Madness and chaos as foundations of creativity and freedom

Catherine, Violaine’s mother, is as honest and exposed as it gets. There is no holding things together, no crying silently behind a closed toilet door. She is loud, emotionally intense, and constantly in motion. She hides nothing. Anyone who happens to be geographically close to her is forced onto the rollercoaster with no way out. The most violent ride, of course, is reserved for her daughters. They are too young to live without her, yet too smart not to notice the trauma that comes with their mother’s presence.

Catherine doesn’t compromise. She doesn’t adapt. She doesn’t perform motherhood according to any recognized manual. Social norms seem to have passed her by entirely, like a memo she never bothered to open. She takes risks, changes direction impulsively, follows her own internal logic and never pauses to ask how this affects the children orbiting her life.

From a distant perspective, this behavior looks irresponsible, even neglectful. And yet, somehow, Catherine manages to raise two strong, intelligent, and creative women who deeply love their mad Maman.

This is the Maman who opened doors to countless routes and possibilities. She showed her daughters that life can be complex, confusing, horrible, and beautiful at the same time. Catherine’s madness becomes the foundation for her daughters’ ability to analyze life, to accept its brutality, and to face its darkest corners without looking away. And her chaos? Just raw material for her daughters’ emotional intelligence and artistic sharpness.

What about "authentic parenting"?

So maybe being yourself, the messy, unfiltered yourself, is sometimes good enough as a parent. Maybe what we can learn from this book, whether we are mothers, fathers, or aunts, is that authentic people create creative children. Non-traditional family dynamics, when filled with love, can be just as bonding as all those “good-enough parenting” techniques introduced by psychologists.

Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is this: we don’t really raise children, they grow beside us. And maybe authenticity, even when it’s ugly, loud, and inconvenient, can be as formative and loving as all the parenting hacks in the world.

Not comforting. Not reassuring. But strangely liberating.