7 Books About the Expanses, Liminalities, and Limitations of Motherhood
Worker Woman with Sleeping Boy by Käthe Kollwitz
These books—whether informative, fictional, or personal—parse through pregnancy, labor, parenting, reproductive rights, the pain of losing a child, and what it means to be a mother.
Babygate by Dina Bakst, Phoebe Taubman, and Elizabeth Gedmark
Babygate teaches new parents how to survive and navigate the workplace while maintaining their jobs. Where a large swath of pregnancy information is centered around the assumption that mothers-to-be will abandon their work, this step-by-step guide empowers them to continue their careers with its coverage of everything from morning sickness to maternity leave to confronting job discrimination.
Radical Reproductive Justice edited by Loretta Ross, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, Lynn Roberts and Pamela Bridgewater Toure
Rooted in work initiated by SisterSong Women of Color Health Collective, Radical Reproductive Justice asserts a woman's right to have children, to not have children, and to parent and provide for the children they have. This anthology expands the conversation around reproductive rights to include concerns about environmental justice, incarceration, poverty, and disability.
How Mamas Love Their Babies by Juniper Fitzgerald
A beautifully inclusive depiction of motherhood by Juniper Fitzgerald, How Mamas Love Their Babies explores all of the ways mothers seek to improve the lives of their children. The book directly challenges the idea that only some jobs lend themselves to good parenting, healthy children, and happy mothers.
Between Mothers and Daughters edited by Susan Koppelman
Including stories by Alice Walker, Tillie Olsen, and Joanna Russ, Between Mothers and Daughters analyzes the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. Throughout the collection, mothers and daughters describe their conflicts and consolations, their trusts and mistrusts, their loves and their hates.
Ghostbelly by Elizabeth Heineman
The upheavals of birth and death collide in Elizabeth’s Heineman’s memoir about her experience with stillbirth. Simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful, the book interrogates birthing practices and the grieving process while asking what it means to mother a child who never had a chance to live.
The Singularity by Balsam Karam
Underlined by the idea that the pain of one mother is the pain of all mothers, The Singularity is a breathtaking study of grief, migration, and motherhood. Balsam Karam intertwines narratives about two mothers as they both grieve children lost in different ways.
The Doulas by Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell
In The Doulas, Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell contextualize the doula movement within the larger scope of pregnancy care and reproductive rights. They illustrate how, through their unique hands-on activism, full-spectrum doulas provide tangible support for those confronting life, death, and the sticky in-between.
