Motherhood Studies

More than a decade after the New York Times best-selling anthology The Bitch in the House spoke up loud and clear for a generation of young women, nine of the original contributors are back - along with 16 captivating new voices - sharing their ruminations from an older, stronger, and wiser perspective about love, sex, work, family, independence, body image, health, and aging: the critical flash points of women's lives today.

Best-selling author Stasi Eldredge celebrates the glorious design and beauty of a mother released to be all she was meant to be.

Silverstein, one of the founding members of the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy, calls for mothers and fathers alike to refuse to sanction the emotional shutdown we traditionally demand of boys, thus enabling sons to grow up to be not only strong men but whole people.

The notion of “housewife” evokes strong reactions. For some, it’s nostalgia for a bygone era, simpler and better times when men were breadwinners and women remained home with the kids. For others, it’s a sexist, oppressive stereotype of women’s work. Either way, housewife is a long outdated concept—or is it?

It’s time to change the conversation—about work, life, and “balance.” Work and life are inextricably, intimately intertwined. We need to celebrate what we do give our children—even and especially in moments of imbalance—rather than apologizing for what we don’t. In this way, we can model for our children how we use our talents to help others and raise awareness about the issues closest to our hearts.

In What I Told My Daughter, entertainment executive Nina Tassler has brought together a powerful, diverse group of women - from Madeleine Albright to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from Dr. Susan Love to Whoopi Goldberg - to reflect on the best advice and counsel they have given their daughters either by example, throughout their lives, or in character-building, teachable moments between parent and child.

Transitions of the Heart is the first collection to ever invite mothers of transgender and gender variant children of all ages to tell their own stories about their child’s gender transition. Often transitioning socially and emotionally alongside their child but rarely given a voice in the experience, mothers hold the key to familial and societal understanding of gender difference.

Mothering is as old as human existence. But how has this most essential experience changed over time and cultures? What is the history of maternity - the history of pregnancy, birth, the encounter with an infant? Can one capture the historical trail of mothers? How? In Mother Is a Verb, the historian Sarah Knott creates a genre all her own in order to craft a new kind of historical interpretation. Blending memoir and history and building from anecdote, her audiobook brings the past and the present viscerally alive.

Despite more power and choices than ever before, women are still angry; that's not necessarily a bad thing, as anger is what continues to open the door for change. In this collection, 15 women speak boldly and passionately about choices they've made, about sex, children, love, and work, and explore what's working and what is not.

Egg freezing is rarely about women postponing fertility for the sake of their careers. Rather, the most-educated women are increasingly forced to delay childbearing because they face a mating gap—a lack of eligible, educated, equal partners ready for marriage and parenthood. For these women, egg freezing is a reproductive backstop, a technological attempt to bridge the gap while waiting for the right partner. Their stories reveal the extent to which it is logistically complicated, physically taxing, financially demanding, emotionally draining, and uncertain in its effects.

In 2009, Jodie Patterson, mother of five and beauty entrepreneur, has her world turned upside-down when her determined toddler, Penelope, reveals, "Mama, I’m not a girl. I am a boy." The Pattersons are a tribe of unapologetic Black matriarchs, scholars, financiers, Southern activists, artists, musicians, and disruptors, but with Penelope’s revelation, Jodie realizes her existing definition of family isn’t wide enough for her child’s needs. In The Bold World, we witness Patterson learning how to meet the needs of her transgender son.

Though approximately one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, it remains a rarely talked about, under-researched, and largely misunderstood area of women's health. This profoundly necessary book - the first comprehensive portrait of the psychological, emotional, medical, and cultural aspects of miscarriage - aims to help break that silence. With candor, warmth, and empathy, psychotherapist Julia Bueno blends women's stories (including her own) with research and analysis, exploring the effect of pregnancy loss on women.

We worry putting our family first means we'll be forced to abandon our careers. We're afraid if we pause our careers, we'll be forever off track. This thinking is outdated - forget what you've heard about how pauses are career limiting, about how those who pause lack ambition, or that if you do pause you won't be able to reenter the paid workforce. That's a flawed reality, one that doesn't reflect the truth of the careers of some of the most successful women in this country. Author Lisen Stromberg knows this success firsthand.

It's not news that women work, have families, and are conflicted about it. No one needs to be reminded that motherhood is hard. Enter Caitlin Flanagan with a fresh, witheringly funny take on women's lives today, the weddings, nannies, overscheduled children, sex (and the lack of sex), the cult of the "domestic goddess" and its manias for home decorating and gourmet cooking, and the endless tension between working moms and stay-at-home moms.

With insight and compassion, Pamela Stone shows convincingly that, far from representing a return to tradition, the decision of some women to relinquish high-powered careers is a reluctant and conflict-ridden response to the growing mismatch between privatized families and time-demanding jobs.

Coming out to Mom is a lesbian rite of passage. In the third edition of this landmark anthology, 34 remarkable women face their fears and confusion, prejudice and misunderstandings, and speak honestly and bravely about the difficulties and joys of life with their "different daughters". Among the topics of discussion are family, community, religion, grandchildren, bisexuality, transgenderism, and coming out.

Joyful. Graceful. Blessed. Strong. Anxious. Depressed. Stigmatized. Stereotyped. What happens when motherhood isn’t what you expected—and when you reach out for support, you are met with judgment and prejudice? Sandra Igwe shares her journey as a young Black mother, coping with sleepless nights, anxiety, and loneliness after the birth of her first daughter. Burdened by cultural expectations of the “good mother” and the “strong Black woman” trope, her mental health struggles became an uphill battle.

Based on the belief that there's more to women's lives than just getting a date, Gilman's stories tell of struggling to get a life and a clue, and engaging in some spectacularly demented behavior along the way. At turns heartbreaking, insightful, and screamingly funny, it uniquely chronicles a generation and heralds a talented writer of note.

What you're not expecting, when you're expecting.... Bec Judd has been pregnant quite a lot: three pregnancies, three deliveries and four gorgeous newborn babies. From carrying a baby to delivering it, feeding it and raising it, Bec has experienced almost everything motherhood can throw at you, and she wants to share the secrets and stories that she has learned along the way.

Beth Moore is widely known and respected as an engaging and effective speaker, Bible teacher, and bestselling author. Feathers from My Nest reveals a more contemplative and personal side of Beth, very much in the spirit of her work, Things Pondered. Feathers from My Nest is a collection of vignettes, as Beth reflects on items belonging to her daughters who have left the nest for college.