Showing titles in Motherhood

We've all had to make decisions in our lives about what to keep and what to toss—habits, attitudes, friends, even homes. In this new collection of essays, Elizabeth Passarella explores the ups and downs of moving forward—both emotionally and logistically—with her welcome candor and sense of humor that listeners have come to love. It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway will make listeners laugh, cry, and feel a little less alone as they navigate their own lives that are filled with uncertainty, change, and things beyond their control.

Might you and your baby both sleep better if you shared a bed? How old is too old for breastfeeding? What is a father's role in nurturing a newborn? How does early attachment foster a child's eventual independence? Dr. Bill and Martha Sears - the doctor-and-nurse, husband-and-wife team who coined the term "attachment parenting" - answer these and many more questions in this practical, inspiring guide. Attachment parenting is a style of parenting that encourages a strong early attachment and advocates parental responsiveness to babies' dependency needs.

What the award-winning, best-selling Boundaries has done for adult relationships, Boundaries with Kids will do for you and your children. Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend provide the help and guidance you need for raising your kids to take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions. With wisdom and empathy, they take you through the ins and outs of instilling the kind of character in your children that will help them lead balanced, productive, and fulfilling adult lives.

HypnoBirthing founder Marie Mongan knows from her own four births that it is not necessary for childbirth to be a terribly painful experience. In this audiobook, she shows women how the Mongan Method works and how parents can take control of the greatest and most important event of their lives.

When Emma Johnson's marriage ended, she found herself broke, pregnant, and alone with a toddler. Searching for the advice she needed to navigate her new life as a single professional woman and parent, she discovered there was very little sage wisdom available. In response, Johnson launched the popular blog Wealthysinglemommy.com to speak to other women who, like herself, wanted to not just survive but thrive as single moms.

From one of America’s greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood. Several days before Christmas 2003, Joan Didion’s only daughter, Quintana, fell seriously ill. In 2010, Didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughter’s death. Blue Nights is a shatteringly honest examination of Joan Didion’s life as a mother, a woman and a writer.

After a decade of living in Denmark and raising a family there, Helen Russell noticed that Nordic children are different. They eat differently. They learn differently. They run, jump and climb out in nature for hours a day, even though the weather is terrible and it's dark October to March. And then they grow up to be some of the happiest adults on the planet. Her question was: how? In How to Raise a Viking, Russell takes a deep dive into the parenting culture of Denmark and the other Nordic nations.

Research shows that "normal" infant sleep is not what most experts claim it is. In fact, many of today's sleep "problems" with young babies and children predominantly occur in the developed world. In Why Your Baby's Sleep Matters, renowned gentle parenting expert Sarah Ockwell-Smith demonstrates how nurturing babies at night helps their brain development, and covers the topics every parent of a new baby will need to know about, including naps, SIDS, night weaning, and coping with your own exhaustion - and even dealing with advice and criticism from others.

Liv's Alone is an honest and hopeful memoir that captures the joy and the challenge that is parenting alone by choice. From smashing the fairy tale story that we're fed from a young age and grieving the life you thought you were going to have, to buying sperm from Denmark and bringing a baby into the world, Liv guides listeners through the highs and lows with warmth, humour and understanding.

During the pandemic, trapped at home with young children and struggling to find creative space to write, journalist Begoña Gómez Urzaiz became fixated on artistic women who were able to overcome both society’s judgement and their own maternal instincts in order to leave their children. More than anything, she was fascinated by her own prejudice towards these women, so clearly tied up in a much wider cultural bias.

Self-deprecating and with an acerbic wit, TikTok star Clara Batten aka @rabatts is every middle-class mother trying to get through the day without another sh*t on the staircase or panic drive to McDonald’s. In Gin and Phonics, she talks candidly about the ups, downs and hilarious reality of trying to parent two small people and fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming an actress without losing her bl**dy mind.

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.

Stand-up comic, broadcaster and actress Ellie Taylor is relatable, clever and interested in how women can have it all. Her honest, hilarious and moving account of the whys and hows of having a baby makes perfect listening for expectant mothers and fathers everywhere, as well as those who've been there, done that, and wonder how on earth they did.

Mindful Mamma is a reassuring and practical guide to help you to navigate the life-changing first year of motherhood. You’ll learn quick and easy mindfulness and hypnosis techniques to create moments of calm wherever you need it - even at four a.m. with a restless baby! As well as this, you’ll discover how to use these powerful tools to help with specific challenges along the way, such as fatigue, anxiety around breastfeeding, relationships and the end of maternity leave.

A mother of four sons herself, Maggie Dent draws on her personal experience - and over four decades work as a teacher, counsellor and now author and speaker - to help build understanding, empathy and compassion for our boys. Maggie shares her five key secrets that every mum needs to know, and uses the voices of men she has worked with and surveyed to reveal what really matters in a boy’s relationship with his mother and other mother figures.

We can only anchor, nurture, nourish and instill confidence in our children when we extend the same support to ourselves. After all, how can we effectively tend to our children's needs when our energy reserves are depleted? There are a thousand and one ways to parent, and only one way that's authentic for you. Drawing on her work as a psychotherapist, alongside her own experiences as a mother, Anna shows that caring with our children begins with caring for ourselves, and it's time to replace exhaustion with empowerment.

We can not raise a happy child if we are constantly screaming threats at them. No parent sets out to hurt their child, but this type of parenting does just that. To raise a happy child that wants to behave, you need to retrain yourself first. You need to change the way you think and react to their behavior. You need to understand your triggers and heal yourself. Only then you can begin to heal your relationship with your children.

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.

Women who opt not to be mothers are frequently warned that they will regret their decision later in life, yet we rarely talk about the possibility that the opposite might also be true - that women who have children might regret it. Drawing on years of research interviewing women from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, sociologist Orna Donath treats regret as a feminist issue: as regret marks the road not taken, we need to consider whether alternative paths for women currently are blocked off.

When Lisa Faulkner learned that she wouldn’t have biological children, her plans and expectations for her life were derailed. But, in the months and years that followed, she discovered that there was more than one way to build a family - and that there is a lot of joy to be found in life’s unexpected detours. In a raw and inspiring story of one woman’s journey through motherhood, family life and self-discovery, Lisa explores the many forms that family can take and discovers the power of embracing your plan B.