Good Enough Mothering

Syler explains how she learned to chuck perfection for practicality, offering sage advice and tips on navigating different obstacles while offering real wisdom about mothering that is tempered with humor and warmth.

"Taut, absorbing and psychologically astute, in A Good Enough Mother Bev Thomas combines all the tension of a thriller with the emotional resonance of a powerful family drama." --Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train "Perfect for fans of The Silent Patient." --Booklist A heart-stopping mother's story of love and loss, and a riveting drama that lets us inside the secret world of therapist and patient. Ruth Hartland is the director of a trauma therapy unit in London. A psychotherapist with twenty years of experience, she is highly respected in her field. But her family life tells another story: her marriage has fractured and her grown daughter, Caroline, has moved far away to Australia. Most devastatingly, Caroline's twin brother, Tom, has disappeared and has had no contact with anyone for two years. Ruth's fragile son has always been sensitive and anxious, the opposite of his cheerful and resilient sister. She cannot give up hope of finding him, but feels she is living a kind of half-life, waiting for him to return. Then Ruth is assigned a new patient, a young man who bears a striking resemblance to Tom. Ruth is determined to help Dan, but her own complicated feelings and family history cloud her judgement--and professional boundaries, once inviolable, are transgressed. When events spiral out of control, Ruth must confront the unthinkable and reckon with those who truly matter in her life. Deeply insightful, with riveting twists and turns, A Good Enough Mother is a brilliant and heartfelt exploration of the responsibilities and limitations of motherhood.

Lone mothers and their children currently comprise almost 20 per cent of all families with dependent children in Britain. Their numbers have nearly trebled since 1970. Politicians and the media have focused on them as a symptom and cause of a broader social breakdown, yet little is known about the causes, consequences and conditions of lone motherhood. Good Enough Mothering? provides accounts of historical patterns of mothering and ideologies of the family, cross-national comparisons of policies and experiences of lone mothers in developed and developing countries. It analyses recent social policies and legislative changes in family law, the Child Support Act and discourses about the creation of an underclass in Britain and the USA. This edited collection, with contributions from leading academics in their fields, builds on feminist scholarship on motherhood and 'the family' and contributes significantly to the feminist and social policy literature on lone mothers. Good Enough Mothering? will be essential reading for all students of social policy, women's studies and sociology.

In this book, the preeminent child psychologist of our time gives us the results of his lifelong effort to determine what is most crucial in successful child-rearing. His purpose is not to give parents preset rules for raising their children, but rather to show them how to develop their own insights so that they will understand their own and their children's behavior in different situations and how to cope with it. Above all, he warns, parents must not indulge their impulse to try to create the child they would like to have, but should instead help each child fully develop into the person he or she would like to be.

A psychologist who evaluates the fitness of parents when their children have been removed from their custody finds herself reassessing her own mothering when her son falls victim to the opioid crisis. Psychologist and expert witness Dr. Sharon Lamb evaluates parents, particularly in high-stakes cases concerning the termination of parental rights. The conclusions she reaches can mean that some children are returned home from foster homes. Others are freed for adoption. Well-trained, Lamb generally can decide what’s in the best interests of the child. But when her son’s struggle with opioid addiction comes to light, she starts to doubt her right to make judgments about other mothers. As an expert, a professor, and a mother, Lamb gives voice to the near impossible standards demanded by a society prone to blame mothers when anything befalls their children. She describes vividly the plight of individual parents, mothers in particular, struggling with addiction and mental illness and trying to make stable homes for their kids amid the economic and emotional turmoil of their lives—all in the context of the opioid epidemic that has ravaged her home state of Vermont. In her office, during visits with their children, and in the family court, the parents we meet wait anxiously for Lamb’s verdict: Have they turned their lives around under child welfare’s watchful eye? Do they understand their children’s needs? In short, are they good enough? But what is good enough? Lamb turns that question on herself in the midst of her gradual realization of her son’s opioid addiction. Amazed at her own denial, feeling powerless to help him, Lamb confronts the heartache she can bring into the lives of others and her power to tear families apart.

This book is a selection of short articles that appeared during a two year period as posts on the blog, goodenoughmothering.com. Author, Dr. Elaine Heffner, has been involved in parent education for many years. In this book she addresses many of the concerns of mothers in particular, and discusses many of the questions they ask her. The issues addressed here are divided into six categories: "Mother Worries", "Developmental Steps", "Conflicts", "Feelings", "About Parents" and "Social Pressures". For example, "Mother Worries" includes such topics as the wish of mothers to be perfect, the guilt they feel about their handling of their children, and the anger that is aroused by children's provocative behavior. "Developmental Steps" covers such topics as setting "User Friendly Limits" for children, their difficulties with transitions, and aggression. Dr. Heffner points up the role of parents in setting expectations that match children's developmental capabilities at various stages. The focus is on parents' own ability to help children over what she calls "bumps" in development. The section on "Conflicts" discusses the confrontations that arise between parents and children due to the conflict between the wishes and needs of each. An understanding of these differences is offered as a means of helping to avoid or resolve such conflicts. The section on "Feelings" points up the feelings that children stir-up in parents which are a significant factor in the confrontations that arise. The ways in which parents can address children's feelings is also addressed. The sections "About Parents" and "Social Pressures" discusses many of the criticisms that have been leveled at parents in recent years, much of it based on developmental research, and points out the many areas in which parents need to feel comfortable using their own judgment. The book offers parents new ways in which to understand their children which can help them answer many of their own questions. Understanding, not prescriptive advice is the underlying theme of the book.

In an era of mommy blogs, Pinterest, and Facebook, The Good Mother Myth dismantles the social media–fed notion of what it means to be a “good mother.” This collection of essays takes a realistic look at motherhood and provides a platform for real voices and raw stories, each adding to the narrative of motherhood we don’t tend to see in the headlines or on the news. From tales of mind-bending, panic-inducing overwhelm to a reflection on using weed instead of wine to deal with the terrible twos, the honesty of the essays creates a community of mothers who refuse to feel like they’re in competition with others, or with the notion of the ideal mom—they’re just trying to find a way to make it work. With a foreword by Christy Turlington Burns and a contributor list that includes Jessica Valenti, Sharon Lerner, Soraya Chemaly, Amber Dusick, and many more, this remarkable collection seeks to debunk the myth and offer honest perspectives on what it means to be a mother.

A resource for daughters of mothers with narcissistic personality disorder explains how to manage feelings of inadequacy and abandonment in the face of inappropriate maternal expectations and conditional love, in a step-by-step guide that shares recommendations for creating a personalized program for self-protection and recovery. 50,000 first printing.