Momfluenced
Momfluenced

Author: Sara Petersen

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2023-04-25

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0807006645

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How momfluencer culture impacts women psychologically as consumers, as performers of their stories, and as mothers On Instagram, the private work of mothering is turned into a public performance, generating billions of dollars. The message is simple: we’re all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood. Linen-clad momfluencers hawking essential oils, parenting manuals, baby slings, and sponsored content for Away suitcases make us want to forget that the reality of mothering in America is an isolating, exhausting, almost wholly unsupported endeavor. In a culture which denies mothers basic human rights, it feels good to click “purchase now” on whatever a momfluencer might be selling. It feels good to hope. Momfluencers are just like us, except they aren’t. They are mothers, yes. They are also marketing strategists, content creators, lighting experts, advertising executives, and artists. They are businesswomen. The most successful momfluencers offer content that differs very little from what we used to find in glossy women’s magazines like Glamour and Real Simple, only they’re churning it out daily and that content is their lives. We flock to momfluencers to learn about fashion, wellness, parenting, politics, and to find Brooklyn-designed crib sheets printed with radishes. Chances are, if you’re a mother reading this (and maybe even if you’re not!), you are an arm’s length away from something you’ve purchased because a momfluencer made it look good. Drawing on her own fraught relationship to momfluencer culture, Sara Petersen incorporates pop culture analysis and interviews with prominent momfluencers and experts (psychologists, academics, technologists) to explore the glorification of the ideal mama online with both humor and empathy. At home on a bookshelf with Lyz Lenz’s Belabored and Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, Momfluenced argues that momfluencers don’t simply sell mothers on the benefits of bamboo diapers, they sell us the dream of motherhood itself, a dream tangled up in whiteness, capitalism, and the heteronormative nuclear family. Momfluenced considers what it means to define motherhood for ourselves when society is determined to define motherhood for us.

Nightbitch
Nightbitch

Author: Rachel Yoder

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2021-07-20

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0385546823

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SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING AMY ADAMS • In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. • "A must-read for anyone who can’t get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that Yellowjackets exemplifies." —Vulture One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else... An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms. As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mommies involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem. An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.

The Long Devotion
The Long Devotion

Author: Emily Pérez

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2022-04-01

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0820360589

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The Long Devotion is a collection of poems, essays, and writing prompts that celebrates motherhood and creates a space, as poet Molly Spencer has written, to “tell an unlovely truth about family life and not have to take it back.” The poets in this book represent and describe a wide range of experiences. They write about encountering the world anew through their children; intersections of parenting and race; single parenting; adoptive, foster, and step-parenting; life with chronic illness, mental illness, and disability; and the choice to remain childless. The book is divided into four parts. “Difficulty, Ambivalence, and Joy” considers the wonder and challenges of parenting—including infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, and life with children—and trying to write in the midst of those demands. “The Body and the Brain” explores the cerebral and bodily labor of caregiving and writing. “In the World” brings parents and their children into contact with the natural and political landscape. Finally, “Transitions” looks at how parenting and writing change as children grow up. Poems range from linear narratives and imagistic lyric to poetry comics, speculative futures, and experimental forms. Essays and poems suggest ways to write through the disruptions and chaos of family life. Prompts invite readers to use the work in this book as a starting point for their own poetry. As candid accounts of motherhood become more prevalent across literary, pop culture, and digital spaces, the way we talk about writing and mothering is changing. Poets have long challenged traditional motherhood narratives. This book brings together a new generation of exciting and provocative voices for the first time.

The Freezer Door
The Freezer Door

Author: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-11-24

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1635901308

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A meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity. When you turn the music off, and suddenly you feel an unbearable sadness, that means turn the music back on, right? When you still feel the sadness, even with the music, that means there's something wrong with this music. Sometimes I feel like sex without context isn't sex at all. And sometimes I feel like sex without context is what sex should always be.--The Freezer Door The Freezer Door records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life. Crossing through loneliness in search of communal pleasure in Seattle, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore exposes the failure and persistence of queer dreams, the hypocritical allure of gay male sexual culture, and the stranglehold of the suburban imagination over city life. Ferocious and tender, The Freezer Door offers a complex meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that relentlessly enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity while claiming to celebrate diversity.

How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes
How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes

Author: Melinda Wenner Moyer

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-06-21

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0593086953

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How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes is a clear, actionable, sometimes humorous (but always science-based) guide for parents on how to shape their kids into honest, kind, generous, confident, independent, and resilient people...who just might save the world one day. As an award-winning science journalist, Melinda Wenner Moyer was regularly asked to investigate and address all kinds of parenting questions: how to potty train, when and whether to get vaccines, and how to help kids sleep through the night. But as Melinda's children grew, she found that one huge area was ignored in the realm of parenting advice: how do we make sure our kids don't grow up to be assholes? On social media, in the news, and from the highest levels of government, kids are increasingly getting the message that being selfish, obnoxious and cruel is okay. Hate crimes among children and teens are rising, while compassion among teens has been dropping. We know, of course, that young people have the capacity for great empathy, resilience, and action, and we all want to bring up kids who will help build a better tomorrow. But how do we actually do this? How do we raise children who are kind, considerate, and ethical inside and outside the home, who will grow into adults committed to making the world a better place? How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes is a deeply researched, evidence-based primer that provides a fresh, often surprising perspective on parenting issues, from toddlerhood through the teenage years. First, Melinda outlines the traits we want our children to possess—including honesty, generosity, and antiracism—and then she provides scientifically-based strategies that will help parents instill those characteristics in their kids. Learn how to raise the kind of kids you actually want to hang out with—and who just might save the world.

Mom 3.0
Mom 3.0

Author: Maria T. Bailey

Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781932279900

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Internationally recognized marketing trend specialist Maria Bailey's cutting edge information on marketing to today's mothers with tomorrow's technology.

Crash Override
Crash Override

Author: Zoë Quinn

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1610398092

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You've heard the stories about the dark side of the internet -- hackers, #gamergate, anonymous mobs attacking an unlucky victim, and revenge porn -- but they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you. Zoe Quinn used to feel the same way. She is a video game developer whose ex-boyfriend published a crazed blog post cobbled together from private information, half-truths, and outright fictions, along with a rallying cry to the online hordes to go after her. They answered in the form of a so-called movement known as #gamergate--they hacked her accounts; stole nude photos of her; harassed her family, friends, and colleagues; and threatened to rape and murder her. But instead of shrinking into silence as the online mobs wanted her to, she raised her voice and spoke out against this vicious online culture and for making the internet a safer place for everyone. In the years since #gamergate, Quinn has helped thousands of people with her advocacy and online-abuse crisis resource Crash Override Network. From locking down victims' personal accounts to working with tech companies and lawmakers to inform policy, she has firsthand knowledge about every angle of online abuse, what powerful institutions are (and aren't) doing about it, and how we can protect our digital spaces and selves. Crash Override offers an up-close look inside the controversy, threats, and social and cultural battles that started in the far corners of the internet and have since permeated our online lives. Through her story -- as target and as activist -- Quinn provides a human look at the ways the internet impacts our lives and culture, along with practical advice for keeping yourself and others safe online.

Momfluenced
Momfluenced

Author: Sara Petersen

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2023-04-25

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0807006637

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How momfluencer culture impacts women psychologically as consumers, as performers of their stories, and as mothers On Instagram, the private work of mothering is turned into a public performance, generating billions of dollars. The message is simple: we’re all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood. Linen-clad momfluencers hawking essential oils, parenting manuals, baby slings, and sponsored content for Away suitcases make us want to forget that the reality of mothering in America is an isolating, exhausting, almost wholly unsupported endeavor. In a culture which denies mothers basic human rights, it feels good to click “purchase now” on whatever a momfluencer might be selling. It feels good to hope. Momfluencers are just like us, except they aren’t. They are mothers, yes. They are also marketing strategists, content creators, lighting experts, advertising executives, and artists. They are businesswomen. The most successful momfluencers offer content that differs very little from what we used to find in glossy women’s magazines like Glamour and Real Simple, only they’re churning it out daily and that content is their lives. We flock to momfluencers to learn about fashion, wellness, parenting, politics, and to find Brooklyn-designed crib sheets printed with radishes. Chances are, if you’re a mother reading this (and maybe even if you’re not!), you are an arm’s length away from something you’ve purchased because a momfluencer made it look good. Drawing on her own fraught relationship to momfluencer culture, Sara Petersen incorporates pop culture analysis and interviews with prominent momfluencers and experts (psychologists, academics, technologists) to explore the glorification of the ideal mama online with both humor and empathy. At home on a bookshelf with Lyz Lenz’s Belabored and Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, Momfluenced argues that momfluencers don’t simply sell mothers on the benefits of bamboo diapers, they sell us the dream of motherhood itself, a dream tangled up in whiteness, capitalism, and the heteronormative nuclear family. Momfluenced considers what it means to define motherhood for ourselves when society is determined to define motherhood for us.

Mothershift
Mothershift

Author: Jessie Harrold

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2024-11-12

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0834845962

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Explore this supportive, grounding guide for new mothers navigating the cascade of identity change and transformation that is motherhood. Our modern, Western societal understanding of what happens to a woman when she becomes a mother—beyond emotional rollercoasters and healing her pelvic floor—remains largely uncharted territory. The transition to motherhood actually takes two to three years, not six weeks or three months as we’ve been led to believe. Mothershift offers a supportive, affirming road map to take women through this transformational process. Jessie Harrold introduces her “map for your becoming,” a research-based, four-phase model that maps out how the transition to motherhood unfolds and helps women to navigate every step along the way. She has used this model to guide thousands of women through the shift into motherhood. Harrold also includes self-inquiry questions and journal prompts in each chapter to help women identify and thrive amidst the cascade of changes they can expect as they enter motherhood. Topics include: Normalizing the feelings of grief and loss of self you may feel along the way. Navigating the discomfort of not knowing who you are anymore now that you’re a mother. Guiding you to cultivate a sense of empowerment and leadership in motherhood, showing you how mothering is a counterculture act. Showing you how to use the “superpowers” that motherhood can offer—self-tending, creativity, embodiment, ritual, community, inner knowing, and earth connection. Gently guiding you to explore who you are becoming.