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"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
-Will Rogers
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My list of the Top Ten Parenting Books and why What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Secrets of the Baby or Toddler Whisperer, or any "how-to-be-a-mother" books are not on my list.
When I met with Susanne, a first time mom who had gone through my Art of Birthing class, four-months after her daughter Ali was born, she was skinny, bathed (I think that was for me) and exhausted. "I"ve been reading everything," she wailed, "And I still don’t know what to do- I can’t put Alison down!" The first thing I recommended to her was to stop reading any how-to books and magazines and take a deep breath. Perhaps the middle of the night was night the time to start teaching Ali how to sleep alone but what about one of the naps she took during the day? Start where Susanne could in her deep fatigue and mother guilt. Start where it worked for her.
So, my list does not have advice books in it (although to be fair there are one or two that could help some moms in some situations). Thankfully, there are many more titles that I could add (and I will!).
- The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Our Lives and Why We Never Talk About It by Susan Maushart
- A Slant of Sun by Beth Kaphart
- Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul by Iris Krasnow
- Changed By a Child: Companion Notes for Parents of a Child With a Disability by Barbara Gill
- Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
- The Lunch-Box Chronicles: Notes From the Parenting Underground by Marion Wink
- Child of Mine: Writer’s Talk About the First Year of Motherhood edited by Christina Baker Kline
- The Birth of a Mother: How the Motherhood Experience Changes you Forever by Daniel N. Stern M.D. and Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, M.D.
- Brain, Child Magazine
- The Hip Mama"s Survival Guide, Mother Trip and Breeders by Ariel Gore
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