How I read ‘Proxy Mom’ and flubbed it

Art by Mathou.

In Proxy Mom, writer Sophie Adriansen and illustrator Mathou tell the story of Marietta and her journey to motherhood. As the story opens, Marietta rejoices in her new relationship with Chuck, their marriage, and the approaching birth of their daughter, Zoe.

Motherhood does not go as expected. She doesn’t smoothly transition into the perfect mom she always thought she’d be. Marietta is beset by postpartum depression and struggles to bond with Zoe.

You’re probably somewhat familiar with postpartum depression—perhaps less so with the naked transparency and blunt honesty with which this book presents it.

Quick to judge

I failed Marietta. I admit it. She annoyed me. It’s condescending and judgmental to describe someone as whiny, but that was my first impression. Overly dramatic and contemptibly naive:

Hospital food does not meet her expectations.
She imagines that her life will continue “… just like before, only with a baby.”
She is unprepared for the Zoe to receive the lion’s share of attention, not her. “Nobody thought to bring anything to the person who suffered the most,” she thought, “not even a can of juice…”
She exaggerated. “This must be what hell is like,” she groaned internally during a sleepless night.

How could anyone be so petulant and negative during such a special time?

Chuck’s eyes are fixed on newborn Zoe as Marietta’s distress goes unnoticed. Art by Mathou.

Sinking in

As the story progresses, Marietta is clearly not whining—she’s in crisis. She experiences overwhelming anxiety, insecurity, and guilt. Her mental health deteriorates. Her inability to bond with Zoe creates what seems like an unbridgeable chasm. Zoe is a month old before Marietta addresses her directly.

Distress leads Marietta to fantasize about having a proxy mom: a wonder-mom version of herself who would do everything perfectly as a mom and wife.

Thoughts grow disturbingly darker—“I don’t want her”—laying bare maternal struggles we know exist but prefer to ignore, including rejection and allusions to infanticide and suicide. Marietta’s bold admissions stunned me.

Fail

How could a sensitive reader like me, or so I’d like to believe, whiff so badly? Perhaps, I considered, Mathou’s bright, flat colors and cartoonish characters had trapped me in superficial thinking. Wrong again. The illustrations deftly balance the book’s lighthearted and serious tones. The cartoonish illustrations of genuine suffering heightened the impact by contrast. Words and images pair well, as if they came from one mind.

I have no legitimate excuses.

The partner’s point of view

Marietta’s husband Chuck is a secondary character—but he was an easy entry point for me. Drawing on my own experiences as a husband and father helped me empathize more quickly with Chuck than I did with Marietta. I say that knowing exactly how dense it sounds.

Chuck is a super-dad. He’s an experienced parenting ace with two daughters from a previous relationship. His support is constant. He is present and attentive. He senses when Marietta is struggling and takes action. He’s quick to change a diaper. He takes maximum paternity time from work. He checks all the boxes, right?

Yet Chuck unintentionally adds to Marietta’s anxiety. He doesn’t consider how his effortless baby skills isolate her, positioning her as the inept newbie. He’s great at daddying and terrible at reading the room.

This stood out. Michele—my wife—and I have two wonderful daughters. When we had our first daughter, we were both insecure newbies desperate to be perfect parents. We gave our daughter her first bath with the book What to Expect During the First Year propped up on the bathroom counter. We laugh about it now. Figuring things out together strengthened our bond and made us feel less stupid.

❝

“Women are expected to be thrilled by the arrival of their newborn and give them unconditional love. That expectation only increases the anxiety in those who don’t feel overwhelmed with joy. They will be all the more reluctant to seek the professional help they need and will suffer; if not in silence, then at least from being misunderstood by those close to them.”

—Marietta

Chuck’s effortless ways compound Marietta’s feelings of inadequacy. She feels alone. “I think I hate him more than I love him,” Marietta says.

The super-dad repeatedly fails to recognize Marietta’s moments of insecurity:

She worries, “What if my belly never firms up again?” to which Chuck responds, “Your belly is beautiful. It housed our daughter for nine months.”
When Marietta worries about her breasts, Chuck compliments them: “They nourished our daughter.” He adds, “And they still turn me on, by the way.”

Tone-deaf Chuck judges Marietta’s body by its value to others.

Prompting discussion

I felt foolish after identifying with Chuck, the flawed husband. I paused my initial reading and gave Proxy Mom to Michele to read. She was a more empathetic reader, although her motherhood experiences differed from Marietta’s. Michele was more attuned to postpartum issues and slower to judge. She better understood the self-doubt and guilt Marietta felt.

Enlightened and properly self-flagellated, I regrouped and started over. I realized I hadn’t been listening well to Marietta. I’d been dismissive, like the delivery room nurse who brushed off her birth pain by saying, “Nobody ever said giving birth was easy, ma’am,” and the callous nurse who panicked Marietta by performing an episiotomy (yikes) without warning or explanation.

Marietta breaks the fourth wall to explain why she suffers in silence. Art by Mathou.

What lingers

Marietta gets help. Life improves. But we don’t put the book down and walk away. An alarm has been sounded, and its echo remains. We are more aware. We can see postpartum distress more clearly and with less judgment. We recognize that our small gestures can matter, just as Marietta finds validation in minor interactions.

Little bits

The book was first published in French in 2021 as La remplaçante.
Adriansen deftly places a few clues suggesting that Marietta may have been predisposed to depression—she had “always felt a little left out”—and conditioned to suffer in silence: “…I was taught not to complain.”
Adriansen and Mathou did not have to look far for inspiration. Both married men who already had children from previous relationships, and both have spoken about their own postpartum experiences.