I bought a copy of this book at an author signing event and couldn’t help reviewing it.
When my bonus daughter and I discovered Shawna The Mom was doing a tour stop near us for her new memoir we immediately grabbed tickets. We share a love for STM’s skit content exploring the interpersonal relationship ups and downs of motherhood, complicated family dynamics, and a wide variety of women’s stories.
Unsurprisingly, the same warmth, humor, and sensitivity shines in Shawna Lander’s real life story, where she reveals with raw honesty her journey through pregnancy, birth, and the first year of motherhood. The Role Of Mom Will Be Played By: The Year I Had a Baby and Became Myself takes us along a path moms don’t talk about much, even with each other, unless they’re caught at a particularly vulnerable moment. I caveat that by saying I’m a stepmom who had a different road beginning with pre-teens, but everyone I’ve supported during pregnancy and early motherhood eventually diminishes the hard, scary, horrible parts of the changes in their lives with blanket “it’s all worth it” platitudes. Society puts so much pressure on moms to never complain, to sacrifice everything they are and disappear in favor of “the family,” that their stories have been quashed forever. Lander not only comes to that conclusion during moments in social situations in the book, she recounts her realization that she has a unique calling and skillset to change that culturally-encouraged silence.
Lander’s writing is vivid and evocative. At no point does the reader feel outside her experience, which is both wonderfully immersive and sometimes empathetically uncomfortable, exactly as it should be. I wanted to give all the moms in my life a hug after I finished it. The only trouble I had was some direct crossover of the memoir and Shawna The Mom skits: every time John spoke in the book I heard him in the fictional-skit John’s voice, and I heard Barb in someone else. Oops? Or, thank you?
Obviously, I loved this book. I wheeze-laughed out loud at some of the stories (oh my GAWD John with the gift bag). I also felt so much empathy, anger on a new mom’s behalf, and even some moments that resonated with me from a stepmom perspective. It reminded me that all change, even the best possible change, is often a fraught, shitty mess you’re not prepared for until you get through it. I finished it in a day because I couldn’t put it down. Five stars, highly recommend for anyone who is a mom, who has a mom, or who wants to have some insight into what moms experience.
The Role Of Mom Will Be Played By: The Year I Had a Baby and Became Myself by Shawna Lander comes out on October 20th, 2026.
