Motherhood Politics

In all the writing and reporting KJ Dell'Antonia has done on families over the years, one topic keeps coming up again and again: parents crave a greater sense of happiness in their daily lives. In this optimistic, solution-packed book, KJ asks: How can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we'd always hoped for? Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, KJ discovers that it's possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day.

At once provocative and laugh-out-loud funny, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother ignited a global parenting debate with its story of one mother’s journey in strict parenting. Amy Chua argues that Western parenting tries to respect and nurture children’s individuality, while Chinese parents typically believe that arming children with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence prepares them best for the future.

They number in the millions and they are incredibly important to families and to our society, yet they are underappreciated, little respected, and even controversial. Who are they? They are the stay-at-home moms. In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms is a special book, a profound and unique understanding of how important it is for mothers to raise their own children.

Mothers aren’t supposed to be angry. Still, Minna Dubin was an angry mom: exhausted by the grueling, thankless work of full-time parenting and feeling her career slip away, she would find herself screaming at her child or exploding at her husband. When Dubin pushed past her shame and talked with other mothers about how she was feeling, she realized that she was far from alone. Mom Rage is Dubin’s groundbreaking work of reportage about an unspoken crisis of anger sweeping the country—and the world.

The inequity of domestic life is one of the most profound and perplexing conundrums of our time. In an era of seemingly unprecedented feminist activism, enlightenment, and change, data shows that one area of gender inequality stubbornly remains: the unequal amount of parental work that falls on women, no matter their class or professional status.

Adrienne Rich's influential and landmark investigation concerns both the experience and the institution of motherhood. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character.

Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya’s mother had always been a source of support - until Maya became a mother herself. Then the parent who had once been so capable and attentive became suddenly and inexplicably unavailable.

Community leaders and activists Gómez and Arroyo worked with children, teenagers, and parents - both the victims and the bullies - to put together this searing anthology of original essays, poetry, plays, and commentary on how bullying has affected their lives.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

In Bringing up Bébé, journalist and mother Pamela Druckerman investigated a society of good sleepers, gourmet eaters, and mostly calm parents. She set out to learn how the French achieve all this, while telling the story of her own young family in Paris. Bébé Day by Day distills the lessons of Bringing up Bébé into an easy-to-listen-to guide for parents and caregivers.

Celebrities are photographed nursing in public, yet breastfeeding mothers are asked to cover up in malls and on airplanes. Breastfeeding is a private act, yet everyone has an opinion about it. How did feeding our babies get so complicated? Journalist and infant health advocate Kimberly Seals Allers breaks breastfeeding out of the realm of "personal choice" and shows our broader connection to an industrialized food system that begins at birth, the fallout of feminist ideals, and the federal policies that are far from family friendly.

Liza was a healthy 34-year-old when she discovered she could not carry a baby. Like the one of every six women who hears this news, Liza and her husband, David, despaired that they would never be parents. They both had careers. Life would go on...in other ways.Then the unpredictable happened. Liza's cousin, Jennifer, offered to be the gestational carrier for Liza and David. This is the story of how two women and their husbands came to the incredible decision to put their faith, their lifelong friendship, and their hearts into the rigorous, uncharted and emotional science of creating new life.

When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a glorified personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Anxiety among mothers is a growing but largely unrecognized crisis. In the transition to mother­hood and the years that follow, countless women suffer from overwhelming feelings of fear, grief, and obsession that do not fit neatly within the outmoded category of “postpartum depression.” These women soon discover that there is precious little support or time for their care, even as expectations about what mothers should do and be continue to rise.

When Christine Armstrong became a mother, it never occurred to her that she would want to stop work or even work part-time. But the truth is, combining work and small kids is hard. From the broken breast pumps on business trips, to hiding chicken pox from the nursery, to the heartbreak when you come home and realise your baby smells of the childminder. When Christine Armstrong tried it, she found herself desolate with misery. Determined to make it work, she looked for answers by interviewing other working mums and found that she wasn't alone.

In Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, the author of the bestsellers Traveling Mercies and Plan B delivers a poignant, funny, and bittersweet primer of faith, as we come to discover what it means to be fully alive.

They are everywhere on social media. Images of perfect, pleasant women with perfect, pretty children in perfect, tidy homes—the epitome of “good” moms. But this model of motherhood is an illusion that far too many women either measure themselves against or simply cannot relate to in the first place. Enter Jamilah Mapp and Erica Dickerson: if you are sex-positive, cannabis-friendly, and love sharing NSFW stories with your fellow mom friends, you’re not doing anything wrong and you are definitely not a bad mother. And Jamilah and Erica are your tribe.

Policing the Womb brings to life the chilling ways in which women have become the targets of secretive state surveillance of their pregnancies. Michele Goodwin expands the reproductive health and rights debate beyond abortion to include how legislators increasingly turn to criminalizing women for miscarriages, stillbirths, and threatening the health of their pregnancies. The horrific results include women giving birth while shackled in leg irons, in solitary confinement, and even delivering in prison toilets.

Parenting is hard. So is being a peacemaker in a violent world. It Runs in the Family is a book about how parents can create lasting and meaningful bulwarks between their kids and the violence endemic in our culture. It posits discipline without spanks or slaps or threats of violence while considering how to raise thoughtful, compassionate, fearless young people committed to social and political change - without scaring, hectoring, or scarring them with all the wrongs in the world.