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NEW MOTHERHOOD

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott. Read an excerpt.

Published by Patheon, 1993

So when I was small, and got a cut or scraped knee or stubbed toe, and went to get a Band-Aid, there’d often be only those little tiny ones that are almost big enough to bandage a bee. It was one of the small things that made me grow up feeling scared, like I wasn’t being protected very well and I better not fall. I realized during that session that I wanted Sam to grow up with the sense that it’s safe to fall, that there’s enough of the important stuff in the world for him, including Band-Aids.

The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood by Louise Erdrich. Read an excerpt.

Published by HarperCollins, 1995

Yet, why is no woman’s labor as famous as the death of Socrates? Over all of the millennia that women have endured and suffered and died during childbirth, we have no one story that comes down to us with attendant reverence, or that exists in pictures – a cultural icon, like that of Socrates holding forth to his companions as he raises the cup of hemlock. In our western and westernized culture, women’s labor is devalorized beginning with Genesis. Eve’s natural intelligence, curiosity, desire, and perhaps sense of justice causes her to taste the fruit of good and evil, the apple of knowledge. Thereafter, goes the story, all women are condemned to bring forth children in pain. Thus are women culturally stripped of any moral claim to strength or virtue in labor. I have no problem with stoicism, I just think it should be acknowledged. War heroes routinely receive medals for killing and defending. Why don’t women routinely receive medals for giving birth? Or for not giving birth – a decision that, in spite of the focus of this book, is just as profound and inarguably more sensible as our world population burgeons.

Child of Mine: Writers Talk about the First Year of Motherhood Edited by Christina Baker Kline. Read an excerpt.

Published by Hachette Books, 1997

And often I wonder, if it had been given to me to know beforehand what I now know about motherhood – the swift and merciless loss of innocence, how you are transformed overnight from being someone’s child to being someone’s parent, handed summarily a love so incandescent and irrevocable that you have to stay awake twenty-four hours a day to protect it from all the dark dangers out of left field – if I had known all this beforehand, would I have agreed to have a child? [Mortal Terrors and Motherhood by Amy Herrick]

The Motherhood Club: Help, Hope, and Inspiration for New Mothers from New Mothers Edited by Shirley Washington and Ann Dunnewold. Foreword by Sally Jessy Raphael. Read an excerpt.

Published by Health Communications, Inc., 2002

What most new mothers need is a support group where they can share their experiences with other women who are going through the same things they are. Only another new mom can understand how you can have been awake since five o’clock but don’t have time to comb your hair until noon; how bone-tired getting up three times a night can make you; how removed you feel from your old life; how you long for an afternoon off but can’t stand the thought of leaving your baby even for a minute.

Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It by Andrea J. Buchanan. Read an excerpt.

Published by Seal Press, 2003

But what I really wanted to know is why was she so invested in my choice? I’m not uneducated; I’m not uninformed; I am a reasonably intelligent human being making the best decision I can after much thought, research, and heartache. I am not out to convince everyone to do things my way. Why should everyone care that I do things theirs?

Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood by Anne Enright. Read an excerpt.

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2004; 2013

I am worn out and amazed by her constant ambient, grazing attention, as she flings herself from me to get at one thing or another, obliging me to catch her, time and again. The world is a circus and I am her trapeze, her stilts, her net. Not just her mother, also platform and prosthesis. I’m not sure I feel like a person, any more. I think I feel a little used.

Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family by Catherine Newman. Read an excerpt.

Published by Penguin Books, 2005

Distraction seems to be our current favorite parenting tool. “Can you imagine,” my friend Kathy, also mother of a two-year-old, once asked me, “if you and Michael were fighting, and you were furious and in tears, but he was just like, ‘Mmm. I know. That’s too bad. Hey, honey, look at the blue jay! Do you see the blue jay?! Do you want some raisins? Here, have a raisin.’”

After Birth: Unconventional Writings from the Mommylands by Jenny Fiore. Read an excerpt.

Published by Possibilities Publishing Company, 2013

Experts say you should watch for sleepy cues, like yawning, finger-sucking, hiccupping, faraway-look gazing, and various other behaviors that all babies exhibit at all times, even when not tired. You must take shots in the dark to discern how much awake time your child can take. If you wait too long, your baby will be overtired and very difficult to soothe. If you don’t wait long enough, your baby will be pissed that you’re swaddling him again and not letting him get some quiet-alert time already, and he will cry and appear overtired.

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (now with Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting) by Pamela Druckerman. Read an excerpt.

Published by Penguin Books, 2014

Samia, my neighbor who during the day is the extremely doting mother of a two-year-old, tells me that when her daughter goes to bed, “I don’t want to see any toys … Her universe is in her room.” It’s not just the physical space that’s different in France. I’m also struck by the nearly universal assumption that even good mothers aren’t the constant service of their children, and that there’s no reason to feel bad about that.

The Mommy Group: Freaking Out, Finding Friends, and Surviving the Happiest Times of Our Lives by Elizabeth Isadora Gold. Read an excerpt.

Published by Atria Books, 2016

After Danny left, I texted everyone I knew: Baby is beautiful. Danny is completely enraptured. That last sentence breaks my heart. The truth was, I couldn’t understand how Danny was already in love with this creature we didn’t even know yet. I was used to fish-Clara, ultrasound Clara; I didn’t know how to connect to real Clara.

Little Labours by Rivka Galchen. Read an excerpt.

Published by New Directions, 2016

A more “realistic” description of a baby–e.g. “born after a seventeen hour labor… at 7 pounds 11 ounces… nursing every two hours… smiling at eight weeks, grasping at twelve weeks…”–misses most everything. Only the supernatural gets at the actual.

Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm by Sarah Menkedick. Read an excerpt.

Published by Pantheon, 2017

Now that I have a baby, the stakes of these sacrifices are rising: Can I claim that my writing is so important, so central, that it might mean I lack money for decent health care? Can I ask my husband to watch the baby for several hours each day in lieu of taking paying work, or much-needed time off, so that I can write highfalutin essays about the culture of Spanglish? Is staking out my impractical artistic mission amid financial insecurity and the all-consuming years of early parenthood empowering, a defiance of the centuries-old pressure on women not to demand too much, or simply selfish hedonism?

My Shitty Twenties: A Memoir by Emily Morris. Read an excerpt.

Published by Salt Publishing, 2017

I was intercalating, a word I had only just discovered that meant taking a year out of university. Despite the feeling that my life had just come to a very sudden and jarring halt, I was very busy doing lots of alien verbs. I was intercalating, gestating and abstaining. Before long, I would be lactating.

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell. Read an excerpt.

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2018

Dustin and I used to agree about everything. I used to feel like he saw me and knew me better than anyone. But now that we had a child together, I worried we actually didn’t know each other at all. We felt less like a couple than like co-workers, in service to the same human project.

A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk.

Published by Fourth Estate, 2021

Arrival Stories: Women Share Their Experiences of Becoming Mothers Edited by Amy Schumer and Christy Turlington Burns. Read an excerpt.

Published by The Dial Press, 2022

Once we were home again, through every waking hour, we looked at him. That was the easy part. The hard part was looking away. We wondered how we were supposed to keep him safe without stifling him. That’s parenthood though, isn’t it? The continual return to a place that balances letting them live with keeping them alive.

Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood by Nell Frizzell. Read an excerpt.

Published by Bantam, 2023

Never in my life have I known toil like the rearing of a baby. I have loaded vans, worked at newspapers, laboured on building sites, taught in schools, managed shops, been a journalist, been a lifeguard, cleaned toilets, written books and mothering – absolutely nothing – has compared to the effort, stress, hours, attention, pressure and responsibility of early parenting.

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS – GRAPHIC

Mama Tried: Dispatches from the Seamy Underbelly of Modern Parenting by Emily Flake. Read an excerpt.

Published by Grand Central Publishing, 2015

The smallest member of our family – the one who contributes nothing financially, and who cannot even be relied upon to wipe her own butt – she gets to travel with her own furniture. And she can’t even carry it.

Go to Sleep (I Miss You): Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood by Lucy Knisley.

Published by First Second, 2020

Hey Baby: A Comic Memoir About Becoming a Mom by Breena Bard.Foreword by Grace Farris.

Published by Easel Ain't Easy, 2023

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS – HUMOR

Sleeping Through the Night…and Other Lies: The Mysteries, Marvels, and Mayhem in the First Three Years of Parenthood by Sandi Kahn Shelton. Read an excerpt.

Published by St. Martin's Press, 1999

“There comes a point when you feel you’ve turned into a twenty-four-hour diner,” said my friend Cathy. “Except that you’re the only thing on the menu and the tips are lousy.”

Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. Read an excerpt.

Published by Gallery Books, 2006

Even after you’ve mastered getting a newborn out of the house in less than four hours, it’s still an ordeal to make your way through a normal set of errands with a fourteen-pound mood swing on your arm. A case in point: A few months later, on one of my thrice weekly trips to Target, I masterfully maneuvered the baby from the house, into the car seat, to the store, out of the car seat, into the stroller, and partway through the store. Then she started screaming. By this time, having had a little more practice, I realized that she was screaming because she now hated being in the stroller. No apparent reason for this sudden dislike, just not into it – and more than willing to let the entire store in on that fact.

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS – POETRY

Little Astronaut by J. Hope Stein. Read an excerpt.

Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2022

a newborn rests her head on the earth of mother. / everything else is outer space.

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS – QUEER

Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood by Cherríe Moraga. Read an excerpt.

Published by Firebrand Books, 1998

It was harder to than ever to leave Rafael in the hospital yesterday, to be parted from him. Each leave-taking a violent rupture. I return home without my child. Again empty-handed. Ella and I fight because we are tired and worried, and empty-handed. All is an effort, except the spontaneous impulse toward this baby. I am not inside this writing at all in my heart. I am across the city, my face pressed to the steaming plastic glass of Rafaelito’s isolette.

The Other Mother by Jen Brister. Read an excerpt.

Published by Vintage, 2020

A big part of being a parent is killing time. I know that sounds terrible but it’s the truth. Every day you wake up at 4/5/6am and you know that from that moment on, you’re going to have to fill the day with stuff to do. When your children can’t really speak yet, are not old enough to entertain themselves or each other for any length of time, but are both mobile, and you are but a shell of the person you used to be, those early mornings are probably the closest thing to hell on earth we mums will know.

NOVELS

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. Read an excerpt.

Published by Atria Books, 2004

“I made a mistake,” she said again. “Please go.” She wiped her eyes again and walked out the bedroom door, back toward her perfect living room, and the perfect nursery where her perfect baby waited, back into the life that looked almost exactly the way she’d pictured it and felt nothing like how she’d imagined.

Maternity Leave by Julie Halpern. Read an excerpt.

Published by Thomas Dunne Books, 2015

Today is the day we do a run-through at Maureen’s day care. I pack up three bottles of breastmilk, six baby blankets, six pacifiers, and eight changes of clothes. He will be gone a maximum of three hours, depending on how long he naps. While he’s there, I’ll finish his Robin costume and tidy up. Or eat a shit ton of ice cream and cry on the couch. I haven’t decided.

After Birth by Elisa Albert.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015

Little Wonders by Kate Rorick. Read an excerpt.

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks, 2020

“Let’s text each other inspiration crap every morning,” Quinn had said, still tipsy from the Long Island iced teas they had finished off an hour previously. “I go online and see all these inspirational mom things and I hate them so much but I want them, too.”

Look How Happy I’m Making You: Stories by Polly Rosenwaike. Read an excerpt.

Published by Doubleday, 2019

“Look, can I ask you something” Sam said. “What was it that made you feel, you know, the way you did then?” He’d stolen her question and flipped it – the question she was afraid to ask, that she didn’t know how to ask in a way that didn’t seem whiny or pathetic, but merely curious, a philosopher seeking knowledge: Why didn’t you love me? [Tanglewood]

Expectation by Anna Hope. Read an excerpt.

Published by Harper Perennial, 2020

When he wakes there is often a short gap of time in which he comes to himself, in which he looks out at the world from his seat, not looking for her, not looking for anyone. She sits behind him, letting him have this moment, a minute when she is not immediately there hovering over him. It occurs to her that it begins so early, this process of letting go – of not inserting yourself between your child and the sun.

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.

Published by Doubleday, 2021

The Nursery: A Novel by Szilvia Molnar. Read an excerpt.

Published by Pantheon, 2023

The utter helplessness of a baby is infuriating. They can’t even consider how exposed their bodies are. What if I widen the exposure and drop her out of the window? What if I let a delivery man come and collect her? What if I turn away for a second and the things I care most deeply about are lost to me forever?

NOVELS – POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

The Child by Kjersti A. Skomsvold; Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken. Read an excerpt.

Published by Granta Publications Ltd, 2021

My biggest fear now is that I’ll die and leave you behind, you and your brother, though in fact I’m more afraid you’ll die and leave me behind. My own death has come closer since I’ve had kids; life seems longer and shorter at the same time.

NEW PARENTHOOD

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS

Blindsided by a Diaper: Over 30 Men and Women Reveal How Parenthood Changes a Relationship Edited by Dana Bedford Hilmer. Read an excerpt.

Published by Harmony, 2007

And while I’d started out trying to better my behavior for the sake of the kids, it turned out to have a residual effect on my marriage, since the same skill set that you acquire to be a good mommy can be applied to being a good spouse. I learned the importance of appearing good-natured, being able to discuss irritating behavior rather than criticize character, to attempt to understand the source of brattiness – tired, hungry, out of gas? – rather than react to it. To think of your commitment to your spouse as as permanent as your commitment to your child. To take a long view of your relationship so you don’t take slights personally. And of course, to schedule play dates.

Tick Tock: Essays on Becoming a Parent After 40 Edited by Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin. Read an excerpt.

Published by Dottir Press, 2021

Terrible things can happen to children – illness, violence, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, depression, bullying. Life can throw things at kids that bear no linear relation to the parent’s child-rearing choice or age – I would caution against a glib assumption that the age or lifestyle of an unmarried mother can set the stage for cataclysm.

ANTHOLOGIES/MEMOIRS – QUEER

The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood by Krys Malcolm Belc. Read an excerpt.

Published by Counterpoint, 2021

Three forty-five at the latest, I say, as if that means a thing to a three-year-old. To him a clock is just a circle on the wall. Today is just another day when his parents don’t have enough time. I am always rushed, always inattentive, and it feels like my whole salary goes to our babysitter who cannot be here today. To Sean today is not Monday, it is just today, and his grandmother has arrived unexpectedly from New York to keep him alive.