A refreshingly honest book that challenges the problematic ideals of motherhood.
Probing the history of “the good mother.”
As a feminist and daughter of a devoted single mother, Stockton University writing professor Reddy was shocked to find herself feeling more like a frazzled “leaking mammal” in the weeks after giving birth to her first child than a fulfilled, “blissed-out” new mom. The unconditional love she had been taught she would automatically feel did not materialize, and for a time, Reddy believed that being a good mother was beyond her reach. In a book that draws on her experiences as a new mother and on research into the mid-20th-century social scientists and doctors whose well-intentioned work ultimately created “bad ideas” about good mothering, she begins by looking at Harry Harlow, whose studies of baby monkeys and their cloth surrogate mothers laid the groundwork for the myth that the best mothers were as “constantly available” as they were “endlessly adoring.” Building on Harlow’s work, John Bowlby developed his theory of mother-child attachment, which claimed that mothers were naturally designed to exist in a private, caregiving dyad with their children. Pediatrician Benjamin Spock later echoed the ideas of both in his bestselling child-rearing manual. But as the author suggests, his advice that women follow their instincts and their (male) doctors’ instructions served only to undercut women’s confidence in their own mothering abilities. Reddy’s own experiences—like learning to accept help from others outside her family—taught her two important lessons: that children—and mothers—thrive the most “when cared for by a whole community” and that love is as much felt as it is built over time. Intelligent and well researched, Reddy’s study offers insights that new mothers will undoubtedly find both useful and liberating.
A refreshingly honest book that challenges the problematic ideals of motherhood.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781250336644
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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