If you’ve ever felt a crumpling in your chest when another friend tells you they’re pregnant… If you’ve ever wondered why everyone else seems to find it so easy… If you’ve ever experienced The Pursuit of Motherhood… This book is for you. "I was 34 and running a London theatre when I decided to start a family. I thought that making the decision to fit a baby into my busy life was the hard part. I was wrong." After a year of having sex to schedule, Jessica and her partner were diagnosed with "unexplained infertility", and soon discovered they were not alone. Infertility is a silent epidemic of the modern world. It is currently estimated that one in five couples in the UK have difficulty conceiving and that over 50,000 women a year undergo IVF. Some of them will achieve the miracle baby they are hoping for. Many will not. All of them face a barrage of intrusive tests and treatment, exhilarating highs and devastating lows. The Pursuit of Motherhood takes the reader on a seven year journey, as Jessica makes her way through various different clinics and multiple rounds of IVF. During this time she also goes to many alternative and sometimes absurd lengths to understand her infertility, from visiting a psychic tarot card reader to attending an intense therapeutic process to discover whether her "inner child" has anything to do with it. She also faces the heartbreak of several miscarriages and a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Throughout her journey, Jessica records her day-to-day thoughts and feelings in blog-style entries called The Infertility Diaries, detailing everything from the effect that it starts to have on her friendships, to hearing for the first time that Beyoncé is about to have a baby. And gradually, over time, her attempt to create a life became in itself life-enhancing. This inspirational read will resonate with a wide range of women, offering them solace and the advice of someone who is their contemporary as well as a veteran of the fertility world. Think Eat Pray Love andBridget Jones' Diary for the infertile generation.

'This book will help so many people' Positive Fertility An Outdoor Swimming Society Book of the Year 2018 After a decade of trying and failing to become a mother, Jessica Hepburn knew it was time to do something different. So she decided to swim twenty-one miles across the English Channel – no easy feat, especially for someone who couldn't swim very well. As the punishing training schedule commenced, Jessica learned you need to put on weight to stave off the cold. This gave her the idea to meet and eat with a collection of inspiring women, and ask them: does motherhood make you happy? From baronesses and professors to award-winners and record-breakers, each of the women had compelling truths to tell about fulfilment and the meaning of motherhood.

Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task. Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary childrearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the ideology of intensive mothering--an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive. Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on which this cultural ambivalence is played out.

A collection of feminist essays steeped in “Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity” (The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, “Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women’s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible” (The New Yorker). “There’s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes “Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch.” —Publishers Weekly “A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive.” —Booklist

"In Mothering by Degrees, I show how single mothers who pursue college degrees in early 21st century America must navigate a difficult course as they attempt to reconcile their identities as single mothers, college students, and, in many cases, employees. As they combine these multiple and often competing roles and responsibilities, they must also negotiate a balance between cultural ideals of motherhood and their own definitions of what it means to be a "good" mother, particularly as those ideals and definitions are shaped within context of post-welfare reform America and the post-secondary institutions they attend. By comparing the experiences of nearly 100 single mother college students attending three postsecondary education institutions in the United States, I illustrate how these women navigate the various obstacles they encounter, especially obstacles related to financial concerns, child care, time constraints, and the "chilly" climate of higher education. In addition, I demonstrate that the women regard postsecondary education not only as a means of escaping poverty but also as an extension of their mothering work, something they do to help ensure the long-term health and well-being of their children. Thus, this project provides a situated, comparative account of the experiences of single mothers who are college students in order to foster a better understanding of the complex ideologies and social structures that influence the life choices and education experiences of members of this important but understudied student population. Finally, the project discusses policies and programs that can help provide better support to single mother and may diminish the challenges they face as they endeavor to complete their education"--

A hauntingly powerful novel about how the choices we make can stay with us forever, by the award-winning author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K. South Africa in the 1880s. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William. William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die. Gripping, moving, and thought-provoking, The Pursuit of William Abbey proves once again that Claire North is one of the most innovative voices in modern fiction. Previous books by Claire North:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry AugustTouchThe Sudden Appearance of HopeThe End of the Day84KThe Gameshouse Previous books written as Kate Griffin:Matthew Swift novels:A Madness of AngelsThe Midnight MayorThe Neon CourtThe Minority Council Magicals Anonymous novels:Stray SoulsThe Glass God

Breastfeeding is a human bodily function that differs in practice across cultural and historical boundaries, yet is framed as “natural” and morally virtuous. Breastfeeding and the Pursuit of Happiness rejects the dichotomy of right versus wrong, exploring the historical, political, and symbolic roots of this sacrosanct belief in “breast is best” – from allusions to biblical milk and honey to contemporary claims of parenting and wellness experts. Within disparate contexts such as medieval Europe, eighteenth-century France, contemporary Indonesia, and the mommy blogosphere, Phyllis Rippey finds that infant feeding prescriptions often serve the interests of the powerful rather than meeting the needs of women, infants, and families. Upending some of our most cherished beliefs about the maternal breast, Rippey reveals the ways historical and contemporary debates over breast versus bottle feeding distract from the underlying issues of poverty, environmental destruction, and violence against women. Rippey balances science-based and historical analysis with the stories of lesbian mothers and trans fathers, Black and White breastfeeding advocates, and Indonesian mothers, among other mothers who express feelings of empowerment, pleasure, pain, and moral failure. At turns witty, heartbreaking, and intellectually compelling, Breastfeeding and the Pursuit of Happiness draws on Hannah Arendt, Black feminist thought, affect theory, the ethics of care, and theories of political humility to offer a new framework for valuing and affirming the human power of giving and receiving care, including through the breast.