Books redefining what it means to be – or not to be – a mother - Cosmopolitan UK
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Perhaps you're adamant you don't want kids and have revelled in your child-free life. Maybe you've recently had a baby, and not felt that all-consuming love that everyone talks about and instead have struggled with your mental health. Or maybe you're eternally ambivalent and you just can't decide if motherhood is your life course. Perhaps you want to do it on your own on as single parent, or you're part of a same-sex couple and have considered using a surrogate or going through IVF? These powerful books cover all of these experiences – and everything in between.
From Sheila Heti's Motherhood, based on Heti's own experience in deciding not to become a mother to Birth Notes: A Memoir of Hysteria by Jessica Cornwell, which honestly depicts what it's like when you don't instantly fall in love with your baby. There's fictional tales starring child-free characters, powerful rethinkings on what family means and raw accounts of the early days of motherhood. However you feel – or don't feel – these books might just help you on your journey...
Vintage amazon.co.uk
Motherhood's fictional main character is on a quest to decide whether or not to become a mother. Her journey proves how difficult it is to reject something that many people base much of life's meaning on. Throughout her philosophical narrative, she uses an I Ching-inspired coin-flipping system. She asks a yes-or-no question and answers it by flipping a coin. Through the agonised and frenzied outpouring, the narrator decides not to have children. And the author through the process of writing this novel came to the same decision too.
waterstones.com
This book is part memoir and part scientific and historical examination of women's reproductive choices and infertility. In a world where women have more choices than ever, society stills continues to define them by whether they embrace or reject motherhood, and whether they can have children or not. Dr Pragya Agarwal uses her own experiences and choices around motherhood to examine the broader societal and scientific factors that drive how we think and talk about this issue – including education, economic status, feminism, race and more.
amazon.co.uk
The author focusses her narrative around the so-called "panic years", which she explains are most commonly triggered somewhere between the ages of 25 and 40. During this time, every decision a woman makes – from partners and friends to work and where they live – will be impacted by the urgency of the one decision with a deadline: whether or not to have a baby. How do you know if you're making the right decisions? This books is an account of Nell Frizzell's own panic years. Using research and interviews, she considers whether it's 'right' to bring children into a world facing climate disaster. Ultimately, it's the memoir of a woman who through all of her overthinking decides to have a child.
foyles.co.uk
Following the birth of her twin boys, Jessica Cornwell collapsed in a fever. Rushed back to hospital, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening infection. Alone, recovering, watching her body bruise, something thing happened: she stopped feeling. At home, the numbness stayed. Learning to breastfeed, she emerging into a world where other mothers seemed to cope, but Jessica felt no love, only fear. Birth Notes is that story, it shines a light on maternal mental health, and the feeling new mothers so often keep hidden.
versobooks.com
The surrogacy industry is estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year. And many surrogates around the world work in terrible conditions. In Full Surrogacy Now, Sophie Lewis argues that we need surrogacy more than ever, and that the needs and protection of surrogates should be front and centre. Their relationship to the babies they carry must be rethought, as part of a move to recognise that reproduction is productive work. Only then can we begin to break down our assumptions that children "belong" to those whose genetics they share.
waterstone waterstones.com
Over the course of this novel, an unnamed narrator tends to her chickens – Gam Gam, Miss Hennepin County, Gloria and Darkness – she also worries about them constantly. When she isn't looking after her chickens, she contemplates: mostly about chickens, but also about her job, her late-in-life pregnancy and the miscarriage that followed. It's about getting to grips with a future that doesn't look anything like the one she always imagined.
blackwells.co.uk
Out 12 July 2022
A mother kills her twins. Another woman, the narrator, is about to give birth. She's a writer and realises that she knows the woman who killed the children. An obsession is triggered. She goes on leave from work, not to look after her baby, but to investigate the truth behind the crime. This book is halfway between a thriller and a journalistic chronicle, about the primal guilt that comes with being a mother. Katixa Agirre also reflects on the relationship between motherhood and creativity, in dialogue with other female writers such as Sylvia Plath and Doris Lessing. Warning: no real answers are offered but more contradictions emerge...
blackwells.co.uk
Kristin Newman spent her twenties and thirties buying dresses to wear to her friends' weddings. Not ready to settle down, Kristin instead travelled the world, often alone, for several weeks each year. In addition to falling madly in love with the world, Kristin fell for many attractive locals, men who could provide the emotional connection she wanted without costing her the freedom she needed. Kristin introduces readers to the Israeli bartenders, Finnish poker players, and Argentinean priests who helped her transform into "Kristin-Adjacent" on the road – a sluttier version of herself at home.
graywolfpress.org
Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its heart is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes the author's account of falling in love with Dodge, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.
waterstones.com
When Candice fell pregnant, her experience bore little resemblance to the glossy magazine photos of women in Breton stripe tops. Leafing through the piles of prenatal paraphernalia, she found herself wondering: "Where are all the black mothers?". Candice started blogging about motherhood in 2016. And her book, I Am Not Your Baby Mother is a thought-provoking guide to life as a black mother. It explores the various stages in between pregnancy and waving your child off at the school gates, while facing hurdles such as white privilege, racial micro-aggression and unconscious bias at every point.
Square Peg amazon.co.uk
This is a raw memoir about being devastated by post-partum psychosis and coming through the other side. Laura Dockrill had an idyllic pregnancy. But as she went into labour things began to go wrong. A traumatic birth, anxiety about the baby, sleep deprivation, a slow recovery – they all piled up until Laura felt overwhelmed. As many as 8 out of 10 new mums struggle in the weeks after birth. In Laura's case these feelings escalated scarily quickly into post-partum psychosis. She became paranoid and delusional and had to be institutionalised for a fortnight without her baby. Throughout this time she was haunted by a sense of: 'What have I done?' This is that story.
waterstone waterstones.com
At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she's struggling, lonely and exhausted. Motherhood isn't how she imagined it would be. When she meets other "mommies", she wants to scream but instead she says: "I love being a mom." Her husband is always travelling for work, communicating only over the phone. She fears she might lose her mind. But one night when her child won't sleep, her body starts to change, her canines become sharper, and strange patches of hair start growing...she's becoming a dog, and with it she starts to see her son in a renewed, animalistic way.
waterstone waterstones.com
Reese nearly had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York, a job she didn't hate. She'd scraped together a life previous generations of trans women could only dream of – the only thing missing was a child. Then everything fell apart and three years on Reese is still in self-destruct mode, avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. When her ex calls to ask if she wants to be a mother, Reese finds herself intrigued. After being attacked in the street, Amy de-transitioned to become Ames, changed jobs and, thinking he was infertile, started an affair with his boss Katrina. Now Katrina's pregnant. Could the three of them form an unconventional family – and raise the baby together?
amazon.co.uk
In this collection of essays, curated by writer Meghan Daum, 16 writers explain why they have chosen not to be parents. Contributors Sigrid Nunez, Kate Christiensen, Elliott Holt, Geoff Dyer, and Tim Kreider, among others, offer a unique perspective on the overwhelming cultural pressure of parenthood. Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed makes a thoughtful case for why parenthood is not the only path in life.
waterstones.com
Untamed explores the peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and listen to the voice inside us. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell in love. Three words flooded her mind: There. She. Is. She soon she realised the words had come to her from within. This was the voice she'd buried beneath decades of social conditioning. Glennon decided to let go of the world's expectations of her and reclaim her untamed self. This is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live.
Laura Clery whsmith.co.uk
As a busy mum with a newborn and a toddler, Laura Clery has plenty to say about the ups and downs of pregnancy, childbirth, and being the best mum she can be while also balancing career success, sobriety, marriage and creativity. With her engaging and funny voice, she pulls back the curtain on every part of her life, including dealing with addiction and virtual AA meetings during a pandemic and maintaining healthy relationships with her son, daughter, husband, and most importantly, herself.
Penguin Life amazon.co.uk
Every parent wants their child to be happy – and to avoid screwing them up. But how do you achieve that? In this book, psychotherapist Philippa Perry tells us what really matters and what behaviour it is important to avoid – the vital dos and don'ts of parenting. Instead of mapping out the 'perfect' plan, Perry offers a big-picture look at the elements that lead to good parent-child relationships.
amazon.co.uk
Out 23 June
This collection is writer Danielle Pender's debut and it movingly explores how women and girls are looked at, look at one another, and look at themselves, and how living as an object can shape their passions, fears, and joys. The collections explore sex, parenting, grief and class as lenses for the ways in which the world watches women ― and how women are always watching back.
HarperCollins Publishers waterstones.com
Often fiction can make you think about your own life and choices. So it was so wonderful to see a child-free main character navigate her choices when her best friends' lives start to branch away towards marriage and motherhood. Of course, it makes main character Olive question her own choices. This novel was like a big, great hug for the child-free women of the world, a modern tale about the obstacle course of adulthood, milestone decisions and the 'taboo' of choosing not to have children.
Sophie Heawood wob.com
The Hungover Games is a poignant glimpse into the true story of a woman who didn't mean to become a mother. "It had all happened by accident. I hadn't meant to have a baby at all. I hadn't meant not to have a baby either, by which I mean I always thought I'd have children one day." Sophie Heawood was living from paycheque to paycheque as a journalist in Hollywood. She gets pregnant with a guy she's been sleeping with for years, halfway through the pregnancy, he says he's leaving her for someone else. This is the story of her journey into parenthood, and finding love where you don't expect it.
Motherwell wob.com
Nearly 18 years old, Deborah Orr left Motherwell – the town in Scotland that she both loved and hated – to go to university. It was a decision her mother railed against. And Motherwell is a sharp, candid and funny memoir about the awkward relationship with her mother, Win. It is about what we inherit – the good and the very bad – and how a deeper understanding of the place and people you have come from can bring you towards redemption. Mostly, it's a moving and thought-provoking meditation on motherhood.
amazon.co.uk
A daring, compelling novel about motherhood. After five years in New York, Stevie has a successful career and a glamorous social life. But what she most wants is a baby, which feels impossible given that she is single, 38 and living in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, far away from most of her family in England. Determined to become a mum, Stevie returns to London to have a baby on her own. When she gives birth to a boy, she finds motherhood at odds not only with her former life but also all of her expectations about being a mum. She begins to wonder if having a child was a mistake – and what she might be willing to do to escape...
bookshop.org
In this collection of stories from debut author Lydia Conklin, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In the story most relevant to parenting, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail.
Doubleday amazon.co.uk
Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like – how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be. My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair.
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Books redefining what it means to be – or not to be – a mother - Cosmopolitan UK
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