Motherhood Memoir

Motherhood treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood - whether or not to have children - with the intelligence, wit and originality that have won Sheila Heti international acclaim. Having reached an age when most of her peers are asking themselves when they will become mothers, Heti’s narrator considers, with the same urgency, the question of whether she will do so at all. Over the course of several years, under the influence of her partner, her body, her family, mysticism and chance, Heti's narrator struggles to make a wise and meaningful choice.

Laura June’s daughter, Zelda, was only a few moments old when she held her for the first time, looked into her eyes, and thought, I wish my mother were here. It wasn’t a thought she was used to having. Laura was in second grade when she realized her mother was an alcoholic. As the years went by, she spiraled deeper, and by the time of her death, before Zelda’s birth, the two had drifted apart entirely. In Now My Heart is Full, Laura June explores how raising her daughter forced her to confront this tragic legacy and recognize the connective tissue that binds generations.

With wisdom, reverence, and grace, Susan Pohlman delivers a lyrical meditation on midlife and motherhood while traveling the cobblestoned streets of Florence, Genoa, and Rome. A Time to Seek is a must for those navigating the empty nest or a period of personal transition. As the trip unfolds, Pohlman shares how travel moments can be used as opportunities for prayer, contemplation and spiritual growth. Various settings stir feelings and issues that speak to the concerns and hidden fears of everyday women. A climb to the top of the Duomo in Florence inspires a discussion on faith, the ...

When Rhiannon fell in love with, and eventually married her flatmate, she imagined they might one day move on. But this is London in the age of generation rent, and so they share their home with a succession of friends and strangers while saving for a life less makeshift. The desire for a baby is never far from the surface, but can she be sure that she will ever be free of the anxiety she has experienced since an attack in the street one night? And after a childhood spent caring for her autistic brother, does she really want to devote herself to motherhood?

Time Lived, Without Its Flow is an astonishing, unflinching essay on the nature of grief from critically acclaimed poet Denise Riley. From the horrific experience of maternal grief Riley wrote her lauded collection Say Something Back, a modern classic of British poetry. This essay is a companion piece to that work, looking at the way time stops when we lose someone suddenly from our lives.

Adoption is an act of pure love. The consequences of the act reach far and wide and affect millions of children and adults around the world. Today there is a move towards an open communication between all parties but it was not always so. Before Roe vs. Wade, the entire process of adoption was shrouded in secrecy and in many cases, lies, fear, guilt, coercion, shame and blame were the forces in play for the participants. Learning at a young age about this thing called "adoption," Mr. Bannon spent his life wondering, confused, curious and a little afraid of what might be out there if he ...

Anne McTiernan begins her second memoir in 1982 at age 29, soon after completing her doctoral training in public health research at the University of Washington. She and her husband are now parents to 4-year-old and 3-month-old girls. Realizing that jobs in her field are scarce, especially for women, Anne decides the only option for their financial security is to become a medical doctor. Overcoming her fear and life-long struggle with inadequacy, she moves the family 3,000 miles to New York to begin medical school.

Lene Fogelberg is dying - she is sure of it - but no doctor in Sweden, her home country, believes her. Love stories enfold her, with her husband, her two precious daughters, her enchanting surroundings, but the question she has carried in her heart since childhood - will I die young? - is threatening all she holds dear, even her sanity. When her young family moves to the US, an answer, a diagnosis, is finally found: She is in the last stages of a fatal congenital heart disease. But is it too late?

A fascinating new volume of messages about motherhood, from the author of the best-selling Letters of Note collections. In Letters of Note: Mothers, Shaun Usher gathers together exceptional missives by and about mothers, celebrating the joy and grief, humor and frustration, wisdom and sacrifice the role brings to both parent and child.

As it turns out, it's entirely possible for the people we've lost to come back to us when we need them the most. Although letting her mother back into her life is not an easy thing, Alice navigates it with humor, intelligence, and honesty. What she learns is that she must revisit her childhood, and allow herself to be a daughter once more, in order to take care of her own girls.

A Mother’s Tears is a memoir that explores the relationships between perseverance, disease, and never-ending determination. It is conveyed through the hardships of a woman brought up under Communist rule who eventually escapes the confined conditions of her home country only to find out she now has a physical conflict to fight. It is a heart-wrenching journey down the corridors of cancer, drugs and alcohol, and loneliness as a mother tries anything she can to make sure that both she and her son live to fight their own personal battles another day.

A Still Life is a story of illness and pain that rarely sees the light: illness and pain with no end or resolution; illness and pain that we must meet with courage, joy, ingenuity and hope. Against a world which values ‘feel good’ progress and productivity above all else, Josie sets out a quietly radical alternative: to value and treasure life for life itself, with all its defeats and victories, with all its great and small miracles.

Through her signature candid, humorous and yet often biting takes, Jamilah Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that doesn’t see the full worth of women like her. With a particular verve and relatability—honed, in part, from her many years among “Black Twitter’s” most prominent voices—Lemieux puts the lived reality of Black single motherhood: uncertainty, fierceness, and sensuality on full display.

Since bursting into the spotlight aged nine, Coleen Nolan has experienced more highs and lows than most people have had hot dinners. Now she's ready to share the lessons she's learned along the way. From the good, the bad and the ugly (otherwise known as love and marriage) to career tips, lifestyle hacks and motherhood, Coleen covers everything you need to know. With her trademark down-to-earth wisdom, Coleen shares her best advice for navigating divorce and embracing single life, including her top Tinder tips.

When Cathy is told about Melody’s terrible childhood, she is sure she’s heard it all before. But it isn’t long before she feels there is more going on than she or the social services are aware of. Although Melody is angry at having to leave her mother, she also worries about her obsessively - far more than is usual. Amanda, Melody’s mother, is also angry and takes it out on Cathy at contact, which again is something Cathy has experienced before. When Amanda misses contact, it is assumed she has forgotten, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

Time Lived, Without Its Flow is an astonishing, unflinching essay on the nature of grief from critically acclaimed poet Denise Riley. From the horrific experience of maternal grief Riley wrote her lauded collection Say Something Back, a modern classic of British poetry. This essay is a companion piece to that work, looking at the way time stops when we lose someone suddenly from our lives.

A map of motherhood, Milk is at once a gentle and meditative story of one woman’s experience of new motherhood as well as a confronting and often painful examination of the experience of having children in contemporary Ireland. Alice Kinsella is a young mother, giving birth to her son in her mid-twenties, adrift in a new town and navigating her newly accompanied life. A powerful and yet delicate mix of the personal and political, Milk is an unflinching and unique memoir that looks at the experience of motherhood against the backdrop of a seemingly changed Ireland.

At seven months pregnant, Victoria Bennett was looking forward to new motherhood and all that was to come. But when the telephone rang, the news she received changed everything. Her eldest sister had died in a canoeing accident. Five years later, struggling with grief, the demands of being a parent-carer for her young son, and the impact of deeper austerity, life feels very different to the future she had imagined. A move to a new social housing estate in rural Cumbria offers Victoria and her family a chance to rebuild their lives.

Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain - set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows - skilfully woven into a manifesto for change. Alone, pregnant and living in a women’s refuge, Cash Carraway couldn’t vote in the 2010 general election that ushered austerity into Britain. Her voice had been silenced. Years later, she watched Grenfell burn from a women’s refuge around the corner.

Ada d’Adamo est danseuse. Elle a passé sa vie à rechercher la grâce, la perfection du geste. Lorsqu’elle met au monde Daria, rien ne l’avait préparée à devenir la mère d’une enfant lourdement handicapée, qui jamais ne pourra voir ni marcher. Elle commence alors à écrire et penser cet amour hors du commun qui la lie à Daria, où tout est sans cesse à inventer. Mais une dizaine d’années plus tard, Ada découvre qu’elle-même est malade.