Wiped: Life with a Pint-Sized Dictator.

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

Rebecca Eckler has written lifestyle columns for both the National Post and The Globe and Mail. Her first book, Knocked Up, was a published journal of her surprise pregnancy, filled with all the ambivalent feelings one might imagine from an urbane professional who didn’t expect to be expecting. Her second book, Wiped: Life with a Pint-Sized Dictator, chronicles Eckler’s first two years of parenthood. The “dictator” in question is her daughter Rowan, who apparently has the audacity to require feedings, diaper changes, and Fisher Price toys.

Eckler lives in an upscale world filled with the best that money can buy. She takes the maternity leave year and hires a full-time nanny so she can attend yoga class, go shopping, and get drunk with her girlfriends. Perhaps this is not such a bad idea since the nanny, at least, genuinely enjoys being around Rowan. Eckler spends four hundred dollars on a skirt for her little girl and fifteen hundred dollars on her birthday party, but next to no time with her. There are no happy stories of morning cuddles on the couch or relaxed afternoons in the park, and when Eckler takes Rowan for a walk, it’s only to escape the tedium of the condo.

Many writers use an acerbic tone when describing the perils of early parenting, but the good ones know how to communicate love at the same time. The tension that results from the conflict of exasperation and affection creates humour, and Eckler clearly hasn’t grasped this nuance. She comes across as petulant when she means to be funny.

The only real hardship Eckler writes about is her experience with postpartum depression, and true to form, she solves the problem by throwing money at it: She goes to Maui for two months to swim away the baby weight.

Wiped might be interesting for a wealthy socialite who has recently given birth, but for the rest of us, the book is a vapid rant on life with a baby. Eckler can write, and all that narcissism makes the book addictive, but it’s ultimately an empty read.