Book Review for ‘More’ by Majka Burhardt
More is an intense and emotional memoir by one of the world's top ice climbers about motherhood, adventure, career, and marriage
In More, author Majka Burhardt reflects on how her relationships fit together and contribute to her life and identity. She takes on a lot; balancing a life as a professional climber and guide with being a mom of twins, wife to her second husband (also a climbing guide), a daughter of divorced parents, and founder of Legado, an international non-profit inspired by preserving biodiversity on Mount Namuli in Mozambique. The book covers her navigation of pregnancy and the early years of motherhood, the intergenerational connection between mothers and their children, and how her feminist beliefs translate into action in the parenting and climbing worlds around her.
Although the book is written to her twins, it is also written for mothers, women who can’t wait to be mothers, and women trying to decide if motherhood is right for them. It is an honest contemplation of the lonely road of early motherhood. The book touches on the author’s experiences nursing, sleep training, being away from her babies, and the change in her relationship with her husband and other adult friends. For Burhardt, motherhood is all encompassing and despite what you prepared for you will inevitably find yourself in situations so beyond your control you will do what you can just to survive.
Sounds a bit like climbing, doesn’t it? The draw of the unknown and thrill of expected excitement and reward, despite the hardships, is alluring to climbers – and apparently mothers-to-be.
“You’re doomed as an athlete getting pregnant,” writes Burhardt. The changes in a woman’s body during pregnancy are obviously significant and it takes time to recover and regain your previous athletic prowess. Furthermore, the added pressure to be a good mom is now front and centre in your psyche, dictating how you should spend your time and skewing your risk assessment. According to Burhardt’s experience, the decision to stay with her twins and be their mom would often overrule her inclination to climb or travel. This is the ‘crux of motherhood’ – choosing between what we want to do and what we need to do. She navigates it by settling on the notion that she is moving forward, unable to travel backs to the body and person she once was. This movement resembles progressing through climbing grades, steadily improving until you can push yourself to your limit once more.
Burhardt struggles with the inequality of parenting roles between genders. An interviewer asked Burhardt, Tommy Caldwell and Sonnie Trotter what it was like to be a parent and a professional climber. Caldwell and Trotter answered ta it was great and balanced and so much fun. Burhardt, however, knew that their children weren’t their “all the time,” as would be the case with their female counterparts. Burhardt also expresses resentment towards her husband for travelling for work and pleasure, which gives him a break from the domestic chaos that she has little chance to escape. Fair to say that someone should be making money in the household, but it doesn’t sound like money has even been an issue for her, having the means to travel, oftentimes with the twins and a nanny/au pair for support.
The underlying issues she’s facing are all too common. How do you reconcile being a mother with pushing for equality in the home, at work, and in sport? Is performing invisible domestic labour contrary to feminist belief? Is it unfair? At what point do you just do the damn thing because life needs to move on? Burhardt states that since she didn’t work a corporate job she thought she would be subject to a different set of rules in this regard. Her expectations were not met, so the best she can do is become someone her kids can be proud of – a concept that awakens in her the realization that she did not truly know her parents as individuals until she became a parent.
The deepening complexity of life is the ‘more’ she is trying to achieve. She strives to incorporate more moving parts into her life, lending to an aura of entitlement around the book that leaves the reader puzzled as to why not getting everything she wanted is so difficult to process. She comes from a place of privilege, has many more resources that a lot of American mothers, and leads a comfortable lifestyle in which her passion is her profession. This dichotomy is central to the book – is it OK to want more and then not enjoy every second of it? Perhaps even second guess it at times?
– More by Majka Burhard is published by Simon and Schuster. This review is by Rachel Stetson
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