Book Review | Musings of A Stay-At-Home MOM | Criticspace Journals |Book Promotion in India

The profession of being a homemaker and adding to it, being a mother is one field that requires an ample amount of work or perhaps much more work than the paid jobs and yet remains unpaid. In this era of equality, women work and manage their homes and also take care of their children. But some women choose to leave their work and stay at home so that they can give better attention to both their home and their children.  “Musings of a stay-at-home mom” or SAHM, as the author calls it, by Rachna Lakhpati is, as the title suggests, the thoughts of a mother and her experiences as being a homemaker taking care of her children. Since it is a fictional record of events, the readers often perceive Lakhpati in her self-time and again. She comes across as a representative of the many women who work hard in their homes, forgetting all their dreams and their professional desires. If not so, she does seem to be giving a voice to those many homemakers who stay at home.

Basically, the book is about the character created by  Lakhpati who belonged to the aviation industry once upon a time but due to her commitments at home, she leaves her job and becomes a “stay-at-home-mom”. But while she is home, she reminisces the time when she got to travel around the globe for professional work. At the same time, when she is with her family, she again gets the opportunities to visit new countries once again. “Musings of a stay-at-home mom” is a record of all those travels and how the author grew and changed as a person as she got more exposure at different junctures of her life. 

The language of the book is quite simple and easy to read. The author has tried to give the most graphical account of all her travels. Even for a reader who has not traveled much, this book has ample details about the places that different countries have in the most-visited list. Also, “Musings of a stay-at-home mom” eventually becomes a travel guide for all who are home and who is outside. The author starts with a prologue in which she explains the importance of words and their usage and goes on to talk about her life from the moment when she was a child to the time when he enters the aviation industry. From thereon, her story takes a different direction. Also, as the book progresses, the author records the happenings in the life of her character as she begins to stay home and what are the things that she has to face and handle. Side by side, she also writes about the journey of motherhood and the little things she has to share about her children. 

The fact that it is a fiction text confuses the reader at times and unconsciously, the reader understands the author and her life very closely through the experiences that she had to share. In the end, she attaches a conclusion to all the series of events and happenings that she has narrated so far, and once again harps on the fact how she discovered the passion of writing only when she became a “stay-at-home-mom”. She means to say that everything happens for the better and her staying home resulted in this better thing. “Musings of a stay-at-home Mom” is much more likely to have a stronger appeal among women who stay at home and have a life similar to the authors. They will be able to easily identify themselves with all that she writes and may even relate with her very strongly. Although, women who work and men may also read the book for a better understanding of the mind of a “stay-at-home-mom”. The younger age group including teenagers and all those who are unmarried may not find much to read as the book has more to offer to a different set of people.