As an avid reader
pre-labor, I was more than a little dismayed by my utter lack of mental focus after coming home from the hospital and months afterwards. To plow through books as I once did became an impossible task and really, at the forefront of my mind was not the fate of a fictionalized heroine, but the nuts & bolts of raising a kid! Escapism, Out. Memorization and fact finding, In. So I came down off that rigorous self tutorial on parenting after about 10 months and found I could lay off the giant tomes put out by Dr. Sears and turn to lighter parental fare. Here are a few I've stumbled across, some are magazines which clearly aren't literature but can satisfy the need to feel informed but also indulgent. Other favorite reads are online and in print so take your pick, which you prefer. And some of my favorite Mom reads are older books that my mom found at a yard sale and brought to me. A few favorites:
Salon had a fantastic column
Mothers Who Think in the late 90's which, to my dismay, was discontinued. Featuring writers like the inimitable Anne Lamott, Susie Bright, Ariel Gore and others. Luckily, through the magic of technology, we can still read the archives. Or, if you are a bookish person, as I am, they published an
anthology of some of the best essays from the site.
Cookie Magazine, as the title implies is a guilty pleasure. While it is chock full of solid parenting advice, it doesn't forget the product loving, consumer Mom that wants to pore over the latest in lipsticks, fragrances and home decor. While I have a harder and harder time justifying buying a Vogue magazine, Cookie feels like a small indulgence that's a little hipper than many of the other parenting magazines out there.
Bay Area Moms, Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile were so changed by becoming Moms and saw so much pressure amongst their friends striving to be Perfect Moms that they wrote a book about it:
I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids, despite the tongue-in-cheek title, the book surprised me with its straightforward yet humorous tone. Using interviews from other Moms, the book is broken into sections. Topics like letting go of guilt and losing judgment over our choices and more importantly, those of other moms are really key. Funny, poignant and never preachy it's a good bedside read especially when you've had a challenging day.
When I first came home from the hospital and spent a good deal of time lolling about marveling at my newfound role of Mom, my own mother brought me a wonderful, gently used book that I treasure;
The Little Big Book For Moms. Created by Lena Tabori and Alice Wong, both moms, this hefty, little tome is a collection of old fashioned nursery rhymes, fairy tales, finger play (a mystery term to me before motherhood), and recipes for rainy, indoor days-all this juxtaposed against beautiful, turn-of -the century illustrations from children's books.
photo credit Flickr malais
