Accidentally on Purpose: A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made

by Mary F. Pols

Overview

A memoir of unexpected motherhood: “Mesmerizing . . . I laughed and cried and shook my head at some of her choices, but I rooted for her and her son the whole way.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

At thirty-nine, movie critic Mary Pols knew she wanted to have a baby. But never—not in a million years—on her own. To take on the physical, emotional, and financial challenges of motherhood without a perfect soul mate/husband would be absurd, kind of like not bothering to use a condom during a one-night stand with an adorable but jobless guy ten years her junior.

Pols spends the ensuing weeks despairing over everything from the financial nightmare of single motherhood to the end of her hope for a traditional life. Not the least of her worries is how to drop the bombshell on loved ones, including her five siblings and an eighty-four-year-old father with a German temper and an Irish Catholic attitude toward out-of-wedlock babies. Yet faced with the frightening, lonely truth that this might be her only chance at motherhood, she plunges ahead with the pregnancy and an Odd Couple version of a co-parenting relationship that looks like one more disaster in a long line of romantic disappointments.

But even as she tries to give her son’s young father a radical makeover, she realizes that his devotion and love for their child matters more than his spotty résumé or inability to remember to put oil in the car. With wit and candor, Pols reveals what it means to compromise in the name of love and to find joy in an accidental life, suddenly brimming with purpose.

“[Pols writes] with humor and grace . . . It’s rare to find such honesty.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Funny, intimate, wise, and real.” —Elle

“A page-turner by someone who stopped waiting for Mr. Perfect.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061870859
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	548 KB

About the Author

Mary F. Pols is a longtime movie critic and freelance journalist based in northern California. She has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Self, and Gourmet, and her film criticism appears regularly online at MSN and Time. A former Knight Fellow at Stanford, she is an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read an Excerpt

Accidentally on Purpose
A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made

Chapter One

The Trojan on the Floor

I stood in a backyard hung with streamers, trying to talk myself into a good mood while I waited for my hamburger to cook. This was my friend Dave's fortieth birthday party. I ought to be cheerful. There were balloons, for God's sake, and a homemade cake, and I was surrounded by plenty of people I loved and others I liked and others I imagined I'd like if I knew them. But while it wasn't even my fortieth birthday—not for ten months anyway—I felt each and every one of Dave's years. I was almost middle-aged. Ancient. The damp, foggy wind that is the specialty of a San Francisco summer whipped through my hair, and I could have sworn it whispered Spinster in my ear.

The passage of time was evident on all our faces and bodies. There was the former playboy novelist, grown thick around the middle; his boyish good looks were finally going to seed. He looked happy, though, chasing his young son around the backyard. An old flame of mine, the one we thought would never settle down, stood with his arm wrapped protectively around his vastly pregnant wife. My friend Kir joked about her crow's-feet, yet her oldest daughter stood nearly level with her shoulder, green-eyed and beautiful. Milestones seemed far less traumatic when you were bringing new life to the party.

The hamburgers were still raw in the middle. The cute orthopedic surgeon my friends had promised would be there had been called into surgery and wouldn't be coming. I went inside to the bathroom and stared into themirror. My hair was frizzy and the gray was showing, although, sadly, not in a glamorous Emmylou Harris kind of way. I felt so left behind. I was the same person I'd been for the last fifteen years. I could be counted on to be fun, wry, and sarcastic. But I was also chronically lonely, sick of myself, sick of my sad stories, and even sick of my funny stories. I contemplated going home to soak in my sorrows. I'd put Kieslowski's Blue in the DVD player and break out my bottle of Irish whiskey. The cats would comfort me. The wind whistled up through the cracked bathroom window to add a fresh taunt: Cliché, it hissed.

I decided to go to Liza's house instead. She'd recently separated from her husband, Hugh, and he had their two young sons for the weekend. Liza and her brother John would cheer me up. I'd known them for more than half my life. As college students, we'd worked together at a funky old summer resort in Maine, the kind of family-style place that liked to hire waitresses and busboys from liberal arts schools with names the guests recognized. Twenty years later, there wasn't much we didn't know about one another.

We made pasta and discussed our various romantic plights. John thoughtfully stroked his goatee and nodded sympathetically. He was single, but Liza and I assumed it was only a matter of time for him. He sold wine, bought French soap, baked bread, and was nice. He was a catch. Not for me—he was practically my surrogate brother—but for someone, someone lucky.

I found myself prowling the house after dinner. I wanted to wash away the gloom of birthdays and the absent orthopedic surgeon. Usually it was easy to persuade Liza to set out on an evening's adventure. Up until the last few years, she had been fairly demure. Always elegant, but hidden away in baggy jeans. All that changed when she and Hugh moved to San Francisco. Her jeans got lower and tighter as her spirits grew higher and the marital bonds looser. Now that she and Hugh were apart, John had moved into their flat to keep Liza company.

"Just one beer," Liza had said finally, shrugging into a suede coat.

When we got to Finnegan's Wake, she flatly refused to advance past the first empty barstools. She was wearing a kerchief over her impeccably maintained blond highlights. She looked as though she'd rather be scrubbing the tub than going out for a pint.

"I'm Hagrid," she kept saying. Her older son was deep into Harry Potter. "I don't want to be seen."

So John and I perched at the end of the bar with her. The walls were brown and there was a pool table, and that was about the extent of the decor, the perfect blank slate for an evening. If we didn't run into someone we already knew at Finnegan's, we could usually count on making some new friends. A doughy middle-aged guy on the adjacent barstool had instantly perked up at the sight of us. But between Liza's charwoman headgear and John's barely suppressed yawns, I doubted it would be a late night.

I looked out the window. A guy in a baseball cap smoking a cigarette caught my eye. Cute, I thought. Really cute. Young, though. Maybe thirty-five, probably younger.

The cute guy flicked his cigarette to the ground and walked into the bar. He sat down beside us, taking a coaster off the top of a half-drunk beer. He knew the doughy guy, who had been attempting to engage Liza in conversation from the moment she sat down. This often happened when we were out. When it came to men, it was almost as if Liza emitted one of those whistles that only dogs can hear.

She sat up straighter in the presence of the cute guy. He had an infectious smile and wide, sexy eyes. Within minutes Liza had got him to lift off his green A's cap, revealing short, dark blond hair and a receding hairline. I could tell she was doing age calculations in her head based on the hairline. I was doing them too. She asked his name. It was Matt.

"Now, how old are you, Mr. Matt?" she asked. "Because we're quite old."

Accidentally on Purpose
A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made. Copyright © by Mary Pols. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

First-time author Pols fashions an earnest, endearing memoir about how she hit her late 30s without a mate, but still managed to beat her biological clock. Finding herself pregnant at 39 after picking up a cute 29-year-old named Matt at a Bay Area bar, the author, the youngest of a large Catholic family from Maine, resolved to make a go at single motherhood. A successful film critic, if not exactly rich, she nonetheless figured out (with the help of her devoted circle of friends and family) a plan to live and raise the baby, including residing for a spell in a friend's trailer while pregnant. She barely knows her "baby daddy," whom she portrays as sweet, if mostly directionless and unemployed. Her book good-naturedly traces some of the early hurdles of her experience, such as "telling the Grinch" (her father), finding out the sex of the baby and trying to sneak into a film screening with her infant. Candid and unaffected, Pols provides an important lesson about not being willing to compromise herself, and that being brave can bring the richest rewards. (June)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Bay Area film critic Pols chronicles her unexpected pregnancy and journey into not-quite-single motherhood. On the brink of her 40th birthday, the surprised author discovered that she was pregnant. Knowing that her fertile years were approaching an end, she decided to have the baby even if it meant doing it alone. Decision made, the next step was to contact Matt, the 29-year-old father-to-be. He was a good one-night stand, but Pols figured he would freak out when she told him the news. On the contrary, he was immediately supportive. "Everyone wants a child," he insisted, and so this unlikely couple embarked on a journey to unconventional parenthood. (Matt stayed involved, but they did not resume their relationship.) The author is droll and exceedingly honest about bouts of morning sickness, her search for bigger, baby-friendly digs and her son's birth, which is described in graphic detail. She airs perfectly legitimate annoyances with her co-parent, as well as her eventual coming to terms with his character. Matt may have had trouble being a responsible adult-at the time of their fling he lived in a hovel and had no job-but he proved to be a sensitive, caring father. Pols's habit of recounting past love affairs quickly becomes tedious, though at least she keeps sentimentality at bay. Emotions do surface at times, but raw expression of feeling seems appropriate when describing her deep grief over the loss of her parents, which coincided with her foray into motherhood. Glimpses of her professional life enliven the text, and it's too bad there aren't more of them: Her accounts of trying to write Marlon Brando's obituary on a day off without childcare and of a failed attempt to breastfeedduring a screening of De-Lovely are far more interesting than her frequent assessments of Matt's self-esteem. A page-turner by someone who stopped waiting for Mr. Perfect. Agent: Henry Dunow/Dunow, Carlson & Lerner

Kirkus Reviews

[Pols writes] with humor and grace. . . . It’s rare to find such honesty, even in an account so personal. Grade: A-” — Entertainment Weekly

“Sharp, witty and slightly self-deprecating, she alternates clever, camera-ready one-liners with intense self-revelations about parents, children, love and family….” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Ms. Pols is a charming and insightful storyteller, and her memoir is both engrossing and endearing ...” — New York Observer

“Her writing is mesmerizing and lyrical. I laughed and cried and shook my head at some of her choices, but I rooted for her and her son the whole way.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Much as Pols’s story resembles the Judd Apatow movie, it is distinct in its heartfelt description of a woman who has come up against the edge of youth and expectation.” — Cookie Magazine

“It’s funny, intimate, wise, and real, and we get to root for forty­something Mary, her twentysomething coparent, Matt, and their little son, Dolan, now four.” — Elle

“Amid joy and heartbreak, Pols grows from a self-absorbed and judgmental whiner into a self-aware adult and loving mother. It’s her transformation that makes this memoir an unforgettable read.” — Diablo Magazine

“Bay Area film critic Pols chronicles her unexpected pregnancy and journey into not-quite-single motherhood….A page-turner by someone who stopped waiting for Mr. Perfect.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Candid and unaffected, Pols provides an important lesson about not being willing to compromise herself, and that being brave can bring the richest rewards.” — Publishers Weekly

“… a well-written, emotionally honest memoir of Pols’ journey to motherhood and increased maturity…. She details with wit and humor her efforts to juggle her many challenges…” — BookPage

“...far transcends its particulars...thoughtful, funny and sexy...a delightful meditation on partnership, desire, fulfillment...” — Peggy Orenstein, bestselling author of Schoolgirls and Waiting for Daisy

“Astutely witty...will grip you to the very last page. This is a feminist tale for our age.” — Heidi Julavits, author of The Uses of Enchantment

“... [A] touching, funny, and brutally honest story...[Pols] is opinionated, vulnerable, droll, tenacious, acerbic, loyal...real.” — Kate Moses, author of Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves

From the Publisher

[Pols writes] with humor and grace. . . . It’s rare to find such honesty, even in an account so personal. Grade: A-

Entertainment Weekly

Astutely witty...will grip you to the very last page. This is a feminist tale for our age.

Heidi Julavits

Her writing is mesmerizing and lyrical. I laughed and cried and shook my head at some of her choices, but I rooted for her and her son the whole way.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

...far transcends its particulars...thoughtful, funny and sexy...a delightful meditation on partnership, desire, fulfillment...

Peggy Orenstein

… a well-written, emotionally honest memoir of Pols’ journey to motherhood and increased maturity…. She details with wit and humor her efforts to juggle her many challenges…

BookPage

Ms. Pols is a charming and insightful storyteller, and her memoir is both engrossing and endearing ...

New York Observer

It’s funny, intimate, wise, and real, and we get to root for forty­something Mary, her twentysomething coparent, Matt, and their little son, Dolan, now four.

Elle

Much as Pols’s story resembles the Judd Apatow movie, it is distinct in its heartfelt description of a woman who has come up against the edge of youth and expectation.

Cookie Magazine

... [A] touching, funny, and brutally honest story...[Pols] is opinionated, vulnerable, droll, tenacious, acerbic, loyal...real.

Kate Moses

Amid joy and heartbreak, Pols grows from a self-absorbed and judgmental whiner into a self-aware adult and loving mother. It’s her transformation that makes this memoir an unforgettable read.

Diablo Magazine

Sharp, witty and slightly self-deprecating, she alternates clever, camera-ready one-liners with intense self-revelations about parents, children, love and family….

San Francisco Chronicle

Sharp, witty and slightly self-deprecating, she alternates clever, camera-ready one-liners with intense self-revelations about parents, children, love and family….

San Francisco Chronicle