Navigating Life: Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me

by Margaux Bergen

“I absolutely loved this beautiful book!  It's wise, wry, bracingly honest and so gripping I couldn't put it down. Clearly whip smart, Margaux Bergen has one of those rare voices that pulls you in and makes you want to keep reading.”
— Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

An inspiring, piercingly honest user's guide to life, written for the author's daughter and given to her on her first day of college, reflecting tough lessons about family, work, and marriage.

You learn a few useful things at school--the three Rs come in handy, and it's good to know how to perform under pressure and wait your turn--but most of what matters, what makes you into a functioning human being, able to hold your own in conversation, find your path, know what to avoid in relationships and secure a meaningful job, no teacher will ever tell you. This diamond-sharp, gut-punchingly honest book of hard-earned wisdom is one mother's effort to equip her daughter for survival in the real world.

Margaux Bergen began writing this book when her daughter Charlotte turned nine and gave it to her right after graduation from high school, when she was setting off for her first day of college. "I am not writing this to groom or guide you to professional or academic success," she writes. "My goal is rather to give you tools that might help you engage with the world and flourish. . . . Think of this as a kind of developing bath-time wisdom."

Wise, heartbreakingly funny, and resonantly true, Navigating Life has invaluable lessons for students of life of all ages. It will challenge you to lead a more meaningful life and to tackle the bumps along the way with grace, grit, style, and ingenuity. What The Blessings of a Skinned Knee did for the early years of parenting, Navigating Life does for the next, far more perilous chapter, when new graduates are cast out on the high seas and have to learn to swim and find their way by themselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Parenting, Essays, Self Help

256 pages, Hardcover

Published August 2, 2016

About the author

Born in Paris and raised in London, educated at Edinburgh University and living in Washington D.C., Margaux Bergen is the mother of three Millennials. She has worked in international development and women's leadership. And is still learning the extreme sports of raising three children.

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You learn a few useful things at school–the three Rs come in handy, and it’s good to know how to perform under pressure and wait your turn–but most of what matters, what makes you into a functioning human being, able to hold your own in conversation, find your path, know what to avoid in relationships and secure a meaningful job, no teacher will ever tell you. This diamond-sharp, gut-punchingly honest book of hard-earned wisdom is one mother’s effort to equip her daughter for survival in the real world."
Penguin Random House

I thought this book might be a little maudlin, over-sentimental and simplistic. It was anything but.

The directness of this superb memoir, a love letter to a daughter really, is incredibly disarming. Margaux Bergen writes about her life with such candor, unflinching scrutiny and a sense of urgency about the importance of legacy that one can't help in the end but be seduced and won over by her wit and resilience.

Here is a woman who embodies Socrates' stern urging: "The unexamined life is not worth living". She does it with self-deprecation, a clear-eyed sense of accomplishment and failure, and the burning desire to lead her children to a life of self-actualization, joy and independence. In the suffocating era of "helicopter parenting", this is as refreshing as it gets.

Amidst the heartaches, difficulties, job losses and separations, this memoir radiates with intelligence and self-understanding. You watch a woman constantly (re)creating an environment where her children can grow and be themselves, even when she herself hits rock bottom. Her advice to her daughter who is about to strike out on her own in the world is heartfelt and wise, yet it doesn't pretend to have all the answers.

It is a farewell letter full of love, self-doubt, hope and a little bit of fear.

[Lorilin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Navigating Life isn't at all what I expected it would be. I thought author Bergen was going to give general, lighthearted life advice to her daughter, advice that would be applicable to just about anyone. But most of the book is actually very personal to the two of them. I would estimate that over half of the book is memoir.

It's divided into seven sections:

1) Learning (advice on education)
2) Conversation (advice on talking to people)
3) Work (advice on succeeding at a job, plus memoir)
4) Blood Greed (memoir)
5) Home (memoir)
6) My Way (mostly advice on relationships, as well as how to survive and thrive in life--but memoir, too)
7) Your Way (advice on forming good life habits)

I wouldn't say that I loved this book. Bergen's tone is very buttoned up, her writing so precisely and carefully crafted. Bergen is honest and open, yes, but she isn't very playful. I read the book in one go, and I couldn't help but feel how tense and SERIOUS it all was. It stressed me out. (Of course, once I read Chapter 4, Blood Greed, I finally understood why. My goodness, Bergen has been through some things...) But yikes, this is definitely not a cheerful read.

Still, even though I wasn't expecting all the Dark Side, I grew to appreciate the book. There were some shining moments of insight:

"Bury the shit when you can and fess up if you can't."

"There is nothing more gracious than genuinely embracing other people's good fortune. It will work for you when your time comes."

"Failure is really about unmet expectations: your own, others', society's. It is not getting the outcome you wanted."

And I loved Blood Greed. That was the chapter that finally made me understand (and begin to like) Bergen. The writing is just so beautiful, raw, and refreshingly unfussy. This is what she says about mourning the death of her father:

"Here's the bitch of it: You can't mourn a man who didn't love you. But this is what I will do. I will mourn quietly not being loved--for at least a while. I ought to be too grown up for childish grief and rage at such an elemental lack, but somehow I know I am not. It is the original injury... Publicly there will be no real leave-taking: his friends are dead or long cheated in some scheme. He did not live in a community. He lived on the very edge of society and took pride in that: this was a man who had no possessions, no house, nothing of his own--a fact that he repeated over and over with a real smile. At the end it was cash only. And a trail of family and friends left with worthless IOUs."

So, yes, even though this book surprised me, and even though it took me some time to get into it, I did end up enjoying it. I just wish I had known it was going to be somewhat of a downer; I would have mentally prepared myself better.

ARC received through Amazon Vine.

See more of my reviews at www.BugBugBooks.com.

[Cindy Roesel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaux Bergen's book, NAVIGATING LIFE: Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me (Penguin Press), began as her way to prepare her oldest daughter Charlotte for the real world. Ten years into the job, basically on the fly, of verbally raising her daughter, she picked up her pen and started writing down the "tools" Charlotte would need to engage in the world and flourish. It was to be a guide to life started by a mother when her daughter was in elementary school and given to her on her first day of college.
“Originally I wrote this as an act of desperation,” she writes, “in response to a series of dramas that visited our family: addiction, illness, depression, job loss, and death. It was a rearguard action, an attempt to sort out on paper how to cope with life’s more extreme circumstances.”
Bergen's aim as a mother is to raise kind, civilized, thoughtful, aware children. The goal of her book is to prepare her child for life, not protection. That includes learning, never underestimating the value of good conversation, considering words carefully, and accepting the fact, learning never stops.
I immediately felt a kindred spirit to Bergen, when on an excursion to a bookstore with her daughter, she chose Lydia Davis' collection of short stories, BREAK IT DOWN to purchase. I write that because it's obvious Davis is an influence on Bergen's writing. It's pithy, straightforward, easy to read, but complex. Her thoughts are well-organized and anyone who reads NAVIGATING LIFE will learn something. I certainly did. One may occasionally think they're being lectured, but that wasn't my take. Bergen is divorced and still learning to navigate the single landscape. Research for her next book?

Born in Paris and raised in London, educated at Edinburgh University and living in Washington D.C., Margaux is the mother of three millennials. She has spent her career working in international development and women’s leadership and has held senior communications positions at the World Bank, the United Way and Vital Voices. She believes words matter. And is still learning the extreme sport of raising three children.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. While I'm not a recent college grad (anymore) or a mother, I thought this would've still been relevant to me, a 20-something in the workforce. Alas, while I thought the lessons shared started off and ended strong (I did highlight many quotes and lessons that were provoking), there was too much personal memoir associated with the lessons that I found unrelatable, rambling, confusing and disjointed. I spent half the time wondering why I care about the different jobs she's had and how she feels about her father's addiction and death. This might've been a thoughtful and great gift to her daughter--as I'm sure her other children too--but for a reader who doesn't know or can't relate to these odd details of the author's life, I found myself not caring for a good portion of the novel. The last two or three sections (starting with "Relationships" through the end) I found pleasantly enjoyable though.

I received a free ebook copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[liz ⁀➷ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
This isn’t at all the book I thought it would be but it panned out well. I enjoyed the mixture of anecdotes with real life advice. The tone of the book felt exactly how a mother would explain to you her advice and it made the read more enjoyable knowing these were real stories. Just didn’t have that spark for me to fall in love with it as I felt disconnected at times and was confused who was who as I obviously wasn’t known to the family

[J. d'Merricksson · Rating 5 out of 5]

***This book was reviewed via Netgalley***

This book is a visceral look at the trials and tribulations, the celebrations and exultations of one life, and the lessons learned along the way, distilled in the pelican of soul and body, a precious written elixir to aid the ongoing alchemy of others. Written first, and foremost, mother to eldest daughter, Navigating Life by Margaux Bergen has much to teach any who read it.

I absolutely devoured this book. It’s writ in a witty, engaging style that captures, and keeps, the attention, forcing one to reevaluate their own life, and serves to jump start their own introspection. I found the whole concept fascinating, and something to consider. I can articulate in writing like I never will in speech. These are candid discourses from a mother to her daughter. There's a level of intimacy there that I envy. I wish I could have that with my mother, written or otherwise...but where I strive to be open-minded, she is closed, and vice versa. Que sera, sera.

As I've read through this, I catch myself wondering what lessons I would share, what focus. The author has a great deal of focus on sociological matters. Given the values expressed, and jobs held, this makes sense. Mine, I think, would focus on issues anthropological. A tolerance for diverse cultures. A deep and abiding respect for the archaeological legacy of our ancestors, and the lessons good and bad to be learned there.

This book is separated into several broad categories: Learning, Conversation, Work, Blood Greed, Home, Relationships, My Way, Your Way. Each category wanders through different aspects, and is filled with anecdotes, facts, stories, philosophy, and above all, useful guidance.

The section on Blood Greed fascinated me the most. It really is a condensed little guide to spiritual alchemy, though not discussed in those terms. At another place, the author is discussing her dying father, and expressing concern that the instability of his life might be hidden in her. “I fear his legacy. Does his rot linger in me?” That hit me so hard, as I often wonder about the glitches in my parents’ personalities expressing themselves in me. We all have biological tendencies/predispositions from our parents. We also have the legacy of inculcated behaviours, passed down til a perceptive person says 'No!’ and breaks the cycle. I feared relationships because I didn't want to be either of my parents. But recognising it helped to break it.

This is followed by the author's remembrances of her father's passing, and how what was most mourned was that her father didn't love her. I feel that, so deeply. I loved how open she was about it, revealing such thoughts to her daughter, and now to the world. That's a special sort of courage, to be so openly vulnerable.

There is one part, near the beginning, that is a poem written by the daughter. I think italics would help, just to demarcate from the rest of the text. It begins 'I left dear kindergarten’, and comes a paragraph away from the first mentioning that the poem had been written. At first it seemed a bizarrely incongruous break from the thread of the section, with tone and style changing abruptly.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Navigating Life: Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me by Margaux Bergen is a recommended guide to life for those just starting out on their own. Bergen wrote the eight essays for her own children, starting when her oldest daughter, Charlotte, was nine, and gave her the guide when she left for college.

Bergen writes:
"Three questions: Who are you? To what are you committed? How will you serve? Ask them over and over. You may never fully answer, but the process of posing these questions raises the possibility of developing a conscious and caring engagement with the world.
My vision: that this record will arm you with a loving and practical text as you leave and start navigating your way through life, so you may always ask the questions: who am I and how may I be of use to others?
My aim: to raise, kind, civilized, thoughtful, and aware children. And please, Jesus, ones that will also learn to pay their bills on time, receive more than they broadcast, empty the dishwasher, write timely thank-you notes, read the paper, and look kindly on the world.
My hope: that this life chronicle might offer a map to guide you in becoming adults who are curious and empathetic, strong and warm, practical and, above all, good listeners."

"This is what you need: the ability to write clearly, to think deeply and critically, and finally to own your knowledge, which will arm you in the world of work and grown-ups. The ability to develop a point of view, even if you aren’t an expert, is valuable. So read the paper, listen to the news, and talk to your friends. Then own your opinion. Or, as I have done occasionally when I can’t make up my mind, talk to someone whose mind you respect. Never underestimate the value of a good conversation. That is one of the first rules of adult life."

The essays are mainly a series of anecdotes and reminiscences of Bergen's life, therefore it feels more like an autobiography. It is an honest account and full of practical tips, but most of the suggestions about living well that are more universally applicable to all are at the end of the book.

The beginning starts strong, with all the hopes of what she'd like to share, as expressed in the excerpts above, but then the book became way too anecdotal for me. I have read much stronger and more succinct treatises on starting out your adult life that were better suited to a much wider audience of new graduates. This is hardly a good guide for everyone who is starting to navigate adult life. It's worthwhile, but the appeal will largely be limited based on the content.

One of the most insightful comments is this: "Words hang in the air. They lodge in your soul. They can unwittingly inform our actions and responses for decades." This is clearly a Biblical principle that people have been exposed to for centuries. In fact, many of the words of wisdom and little gems found within this discourse can be found in countless other places. The question is more on presentation. If you like anecdotal stories with your words of advice then this may be a good choice.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.

[David Kennerly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaux Bergen has hit it out of the parental park with this book. As a mother of three kids, she has written a story that not only gives warm, witty, and valuable advice to her own children, but translates those wise words into a formula that we can all use. Ms. Bergen has produced a handbook for anyone who wants to become a better person, and she delivers that message with a sense of vulnerability and wicked humor.

[Arminda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to pick up books based on their title or if I think the cover is intriguing. It turns out that this book isn’t exactly what I expected based on the title. I hadn’t assumed that it would be the author’s personal life driving the story. At times it felt a little unrelatable - almost as if I were interrupting someone’s personal conversation. There were a few lessons that I found useful and could potentially put into practice. My overall feeling of the book is neutral.

[Jalaj Punn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book on a table near a Yogurtland. No idea what it was about. Though some parts were slow, I enjoyed hearing everything about life Margaux went through. It was almost like a manual to life but also, more so things to stay aware of. Moreover, you could see the wisedom that she has accumulated through her life from her failures/success/in the middle things.

[Kenna Grove · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had nice moments of direct advice to her daughter and I enjoyed pieces of the memoir. However, the book did not really hold any lasting meaning with me other than the unique role mothers may have in advising their children. I’m sure the book may be better appreciated by someone who fits into this role, but as a 20-something with no kids, I don’t see myself returning to this book a second time.

[Meg Deere · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a letter that her daughter will love, and I’m not sure needs to be published and read by anyone else. Bergen sounds like she would be great to meet at a party, but this reads more like a blog than a memoir.

[Tiffany Cavanaugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a journal and love letter to her daughter than the self help book I imagined, but everyone should write love letters to their kids.

[Becca Greene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was a well written and executed book, just the style of writing isn’t my cup of tea. Lots of folks could benefit from reading this and applying some of it.

[Jillian Weaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really like the structure and I think it made me hesitant about the rest of the book; however, I love the section about having your work tribe.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up at the library, I liked the concept of what knowledge to pass on to future generations. The book was not at all what I was expecting, but I did enjoy it. I was expecting the big picture of how the world works, but it was kind of a journal of living. I appreciated the honesty, the ups and downs of life, the mundane things, the struggles of surviving. I relate to the author, as I think most should.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a part memoir, part advice for adulthood written by a mother to her oldest daughter. According to the book's synopsis Bergen began writing it because of a series of things that happened when her daughter was 9. Having read the whole book I'm still not sure what those events were. This definitely feels like the reader is intruding on a private conversation between the mother and daughter, and the advice given is not always sound (not sure where she was going with the information about the dentist). I picked this up from my library's new books shelf because it sounded like it might be like another title I heard about, I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This: A Memoir.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first began to read this book I was completely captured by its introduction. A passionate mother decides to write a novel for her daughter/children to inherit in which she reminisces about the preparedness and unpreparedness of navigating through life. Margaux gently pleads for her children to become compassionate and critical thinkers of the world. From the introduction, I was expecting thought provoking advice and I never found anything aside from a few good lines. This book is surely more of a memoir filled with stories of the authors leaps of faith, don't expect any self-help or advice.
*I received an ARC via NetGalley & Penguin Press in exchange for an honest review.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very well-written, and full of sound judgment and advice. I appreciate what Margaux Bergen has given readers with this book. Her experiences and knowledge have helped me learn valuable life lessons, and resolve some interpersonal and relationship strains. She is a mentor of truth and reality. I both thoroughly enjoyed, and appreciated everything she had to say. I would recommend this book as a must-read. Thank you Ms.Bergen!

[Library Lea · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
I thought this would be something I could give my daughter as she goes off to college herself but it is much too biographic. I listened to the audiobook and found my mind wandering quite often as the author relayed family stories. There may be some advice of value but, if I could not pay attention, I know my daughter would not be the least bit interested.

[Mike Ely · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is 10% Advice for Life and 90% Other Rambling Moments From Margaux's Life. There are good snippets here and there to ponder about life, but I found myself just trying to get through most of the book to see if she actually gave any more usable advice. There are better books to read instead of this one.

[Joey P · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wrote this book for her daughter when she was going to university. It was written around 2009-2010, but it seems like Bergen has changed some of the events (like watching Revenge on Netflix, a show that was aired during 2011-2015) to match with today's culture. There are eight parts in the book: learning, conversation, work, blood greed, home , relationships, my and your way.

I love what she has done and share it with everyone else. However, there is no one correct approach to living or parenting for everyone. That meaning said, I agree with some of her advice and disagree with some of them. It is always good to see other people's perspectives on life.

4 out of 5 stars
Received a free copy from BookSparks WRC 2017 in exchange for an honest review.

[Jannette Malcom]

I think ego can easily come into play when writing about our kids and Margaux seems unwilling to acknowledge this. After reading this book I'm unsure as to whether Margaux is a nurturing person or someone who is damaged and seeking a new chapter?