How to Read Mom

Celebrate Mother’s Day by learning more about a mother’s inner conflicts and the ties that bind us to her. We’re not talking Chicken Soup here. Take a look at these books in the library collection, and give your mom a break.

You’re wearing that? : understanding mothers and daughters in conversation by Deborah Tannen. Tannen explains why a remark that would be harmless coming from anyone else can cause an explosion when it comes from your mother or your daughter. –From publisher description.
Location: 2nd Floor, 306.8743 T15y

Mother-daughter wisdom : creating a legacy of physical and emotional health by Christiane Northrup
The mother-daughter relationship sets the stage for our state of health and well-being for our entire lives. Because our mothers are our first and most powerful female role models, our most deeply ingrained beliefs about ourselves as women come from them. — from publisher description.
Location: 3rd Floor, 613.0424 N82m

A potent spell : mother love and the power of fear / Janna Malamud Smith.
Bearing the brunt of responsibility for keeping children safe and healthy, mothers constantly accommodate to the need to be vigilant. Their fears make them vulnerable in many ways, affecting their daily lives in the workplace, at home, and within the social hierarchy. Smith takes the long view of this phenomenon, uncovering a buried message to mothers in advice books from the days of the Puritans to the present, in medicine and psychology, in art and literature — from publisher description
Location: 2nd floor: 306.8743 Sm51p

Motherless mothers : how mother loss shapes the parents we become / Hope Edelman
Edelman investigates the effects of early mother loss–whether through death or abandonment–on how women raise their own children. Drawing upon her own personal experience as well as information gathered from a survey of more than 1,000 women, she identifies eight distinct parenting traits they all share. — ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Location: 2nd floor, 155.937 Ed2mo

The cultural contradictions of motherhood / Sharon Hays.
Hays, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Virginia, examines the differing views of mothers about their parenting roles and how these views have been shaped by society’s view of working women. Her thesis is that society’s concept of “socially appropriate mothering” revolves around “intensity,” which translates into mothers who “expend a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money in raising their children.” — from Publisher’s Weekly review
Location: 2nd floor, 306.8743 H33c

Check availablity by searching Voyager catalog by the title of these books. Find more books on mothers and motherhood by searching Voyager catalog by subjects such as Mothers; Mothers — psychology; Motherhood; Mothers and Daughters; Mothers — United States.