Elly Sparrow is the mother of four small children and the wife of a man who travels and works long hours at a law firm. Often finding herself the sole caregiver for days at a time, she begins to chafe at the restrictions on her life that young children demand.

She loves them all, yet she finds that she is losing a sense of her own self in taking care of the needs of the whole household. Her unhappiness with her life prompts her to make changes that have broad ranging consequences for the whole family.

Rules for Mothers by Julie Swendsen Young seeks to capture both the joys and frustrations brought on by motherhood. It also shines a light on gender roles and mental health issues that can arise for women who do too much for others while ignoring their own needs.

While the message of the novel is important, Elly was hard to like, as she didn’t define or ask for what she needed, acted impulsively, and see-sawed between wanting to do everything for her children and being resentful that she had to do everything.

And her husband’s motivations seemed surface level. Sometimes he professed his love for Elly and wanting things to work out between them as a family, other times he seemed only to care about himself. There wasn’t enough time on the page between them for me to understand the complexities that led them both to feel trapped in their lives.

The novel takes place during the 1980s, which sets it in a time when gender roles in marriage were more traditional. That positions it as a cautionary tale, as there’s also a movement to go back to those days.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book for review.