Pulse: 60-Second Critic: A Different Kind of Mommy War

With style and wit, Philly Mag’s Vicki Glembocki tackles the challenges, disappointments and adjustments of modern motherhood

Months after giving birth, Philly Mag’s Vicki Glembocki wrote an essay for this magazine laying out all her maternal insecurities. “I thought I was going to be ‘happy-happy girl’ once the baby came,” she says. “But I wasn’t. It was harder than anyone ever told me.” Now Glembocki’s frank admissions — she resented the baby weight; her husband was being a “total pain in the ass”; she couldn’t wait to go back to work — have morphed into a memoir, The Second Nine Months (Perseus Books Group; $24). With style and wit, she tackles the taboo topics of the challenges, disappointments and adjustments of modern motherhood.