Rockford flipped to a random page in “The Man Who Tried to Save the World” and read a few paragraphs. Afterward, he told me he didn’t think he could read the whole book. “All that Tom Clancy stuff is one thing when you know it’s not real,” he said.

Scott Anderson’s book about “the dangerous life and mysterious disappearance of” disaster-relief specialist Fred Cuny isn’t fiction, though, and that’s what makes it so frightening and so compelling.

Author Ayelet Waldman was put through the wringer a few years ago for writing that she loved her husband more than her children. (Oprah said it was a “shocking confession“!) Now Waldman is back with another article that may raise a few hackles: “The Bad-Mommy Brigade: Britney goes to the psych ward, and mothers everywhere secretly rejoice. Why we love to hate the ultimate bogeymama.”

I can sympathize with much of what she says. But the final part of the following excerpt gave me pause.

… When I became pregnant with my second child, I packed up my desk, tossed my framed diplomas into the attic, and became a stay-at-home mom.

It was everything that I thought it would be. Mommy & Me, Gymboree, story time at the library, long stroller walks with my stay-at-home-mommy friends. And then the next day it was Mommy & Me, Gymboree, story time at the library, and long stroller walks with my stay-at-home-mommy friends. And the day after that, and the day after that.

Within a week I was bored and miserable. But a Good Mother wasn’t supposed to be bored and miserable. She didn’t stare at the clock in Gymboree, willing it along with all the power of a fourth-grader waiting for recess, or hide the finger paints because she couldn’t stand the mess. If I wasn’t enjoying myself, then I was a bad mother. …

… So here we are, either staying home, or making serious professional compromises in order to be more available to our children, or feeling like terrible mothers for having failed to make those sacrifices. I imagine there are some mothers who have without regret channeled all of their ambition and energy into making homemade Play-Doh and organizing the nursery school’s capital campaign. I have never met one. The women I know feel an underlying and corrosive sense of disappointment and anxiety. The women I know are, on some level, unfulfilled.

I do feel like a Bad Mommy when my head starts to spin after the 55th consecutive “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or when I’d rather sit down and read a book than continue the Mr. Potato Head marathon or when I have to pin my little girl to the floor to hold a bag of peas to the goose egg on her head after she falls and whacks her noggin on a chair. So, yes. I feel like a Bad Mommy pretty frequently.

But I don’t feel that “underlying and corrosive sense of disappointment.” Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a high-powered career before having children. Or it could be because even if I did have a job outside the home, it would hardly pay enough to cover the cost of daycare. I think for me, though, the truth is this: My pre-Mommy job was also sometimes frustrating and often boring, but I never swooned at my co-workers’ adorable smiles or had dance parties with them or giggled with them for the sake of giggling.

I don’t know whether the other mothers I know are disappointed in their choices. It’s not something I’ve ever discussed with them.

So tell me, moms, do you feel unfulfilled? In what way? And what do you think would help resolve that?

Alice at Finslippy had a self-proclaimed Bad Mom day a few days ago. To make herself feel better, she asked her readers to share their bad parenting stories. Today, she shared her favorites.

I felt bad laughing at the stories, but the kids all survived! So it’s OK to laugh! Ha! Right?