Operating Instructions

Operating Instructions Summary | Part 1 Summary

Operating Instructions is a series of diary entries made by the author, Anne Lamott, which chronicle the first year of her son Sam's life. The book begins with a preface that describes her feelings in the months leading up to her son's birth. The diary's initial entry is written approximately three months prior to Sam's birth and describes Anne's realization that she is quite pregnant and about to become a single mother. While she obviously has known for some time that a child is on the way, she tells us that the physical transformation her body has undergone in recent weeks has been very noticeable and that she now knows that this baby's birth is undeniable.

As she contemplates the many ways in which her life is about to change, she alludes to the fact that she has one specific overwhelming fear about becoming a mother, but doesn't initially elaborate. Instead, she tells us of all of the things she should fear but doesn't. For instance, although she knows it would have been perfectly normal to have been afraid of the amniocentesis, she was not. Similarly, while she went through the normal range of emotions while waiting for the results of this test, she tells us that overall, the fear of having a child that has some sort of birth defect isn't her biggest fear.

Anne also acknowledges that while the fact that she is having a boy is a little unsettling, it is not her biggest fear. Her biggest concern with having a little boy is that he will come equipped with a penis, and she wonders how her son will handle this responsibility. Finally, after contemplating some other things she should fear but does not, Anne tells us that her biggest fear about becoming a mother is that her child will have to endure the seventh and eighth grades.

In recalling her own seventh and eighth grade experiences, Anne speaks of the never-ending peer pressure, the quest for popularity and the constant feeling of being alone. These feelings were so strong that Anne spent a good portion of her adulthood trying to find ways to erase them from her memory, even resorting to unhealthy and dangerous amounts of alcohol, drugs, work and other obsessive behaviors. She tells us that she has recently experienced these feelings all over again, this time courtesy of pregnancy-related hormones. This has reinforced her desire to not subject her child to the same anguish. However, after some intense introspection, she finally comes to the understanding that she will never be able to totally make the loneliness go away. She will have to live her life as best she can while recognizing that, at least on some level, those feelings will always continue to exist.