Motherhood Philosophy For Everyone

The complex world of motherhood is here unveiled. Covering issues ranging from whether we should occasionally lie to our children, to the unexpected challenges and complications of being a mother, Motherhood - Philosophy for Everyone offers insightful, serious but often humorous essays that can be enjoyed by everyone - including husbands and fathers. Considers salient philosophical issues relating to pregnancy, birth, babycare, and raising a child Chapters include "The Days and Nights of a New Mother: Existentialism in the Nursery", "The Media Proudly Presents: Lessons' from Celebrity Moms", and "The Off Button: Thought Experiments and Child Control" Contains work from diverse academic perspectives, including economics, psychology, education, English, sociology, women's studies, and theological studies, as well as from nurses and stay-at-home mothers Includes a foreword by Judith Warner, the New York Times columnist ("Domestic Disturbances") and author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety

MOTHERHOOD PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE If you have ever wondered what makes a “good” or a “bad” mother, or if mothers are always right in thinking their babies are beautiful, or indeed, whether mother always knows best, look no further. Without a single nag, Motherhood – Philosophy for Everyone covers these salient philosophical issues, and more, including: The anticipation of impending parenthood compared with the reality Should we tell the occasional lie to our children? What does the Bible actually say about the virgin birth? If we were able to turn our children off, would and should we be tempted by this option? The experience of lesbian mothering The unexpected challenges and complications of being a mother “As in any group of thinkers, some mothers are more ambitiously reflective than others, either out of temperamental thoughtfulness, moral and political concerns, or, most often, because they have serious problems with their children. However, maternal thinking is no rarity. Maternal work itself demands that mothers think...” From Maternal Thinking: Toward A Politics of Peace, Sara Ruddick

Using feminist, existential, ethical, aesthetic, phenomenological, social and political theories, the contributors to this book consider topics including pregnancy and embodiment, breast-feeding, representations - or the lack thereof - of pregnant and birthing women, adoption, and post-partum motherhood.

This book offers a new perspective on the motherhood experience. Drawing on existential philosophy and recent phenomenological research into motherhood, the book demonstrates how motherhood can be understood as an existential crisis. It argues that an awareness of the existential issues women face will enable mothers to gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted aspects of their experience. The book is divided into four sections: Existential Crisis, Maternal Mental Health Crisis, Social Crisis and Working with Existential Crisis, where each section. Each chapter is based on either experiential research or the author’s extensive therapeutic experience of working with mothers and reflects different aspects of the motherhood journey, all through the lens of a philosophical existential approach. The book is essential reading for mental health practitioners and researchers working with mothers, midwives and health visitors, but it is also written for mothers, with the aim to offer new insights on this important life transition.

Philosophical inquiry into pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering is a growing area of interest to academic philosophers. This volume brings together a diverse group of philosophers to speak about topics in this reemerging area of philosophical inquiry, taking up new themes, such as maternal aesthetics, and pursuing old ones in new ways, such as investigating stepmothering as it might inform and ground an ethics of care. The theoretical foci of the book include feminist, existential, ethical, aesthetic, phenomenological, social and political theories. These perspectives are then employed to consider many dimensions of pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering, which are of central importance to human existence, but are only rarely discussed in philosophical cannons. Topics include pregnancy and embodiment, breast-feeding, representations – or the lack thereof – of pregnant and birthing women, adoption, and post-partum motherhood.

Coming to Life does what too few scholarly works have dared to attempt: It takes seriously the philosophical significance of women's lived experience. Every woman, regardless of her own reproductive story, is touched by the beliefs and norms governing discourses about pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering. The volume's contributors engage in sustained reflection on women's experiences and on the beliefs, customs, and political institutions by which they are informed. They think beyond the traditional pro-choice/pro-life dichotomy, speak to the manifold nature of mothering by considering the experiences of adoptive mothers and birthmothers, and upend the belief that childrearing practices must be uniform, despite psychosexual differences in children. Many chapters reveal the radical shortcomings of conventional philosophical wisdom by placing trenchant assumptions about subjectivity, gender, power and virtue in dialogue with women's experience.

Now in paperback, the provocative book that has ignited fiery debate and created a dialogue among women about the state of motherhood today. In THE MOMMY MYTH, Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels turn their 'sharp, funny, and fed-up prose' (San Diego Union Tribune) toward the cult of the new momism, a trend in Western culture that suggests that women can only achieve contentment through the perfection of mothering. Even so, the standards of this ideal remain out of reach, no matter how hard women try to 'have it all'. THE MOMMY MYTH skilfully maps the distance travelled from the days when THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE demanded more for women than keeping house and raising children, to today's not-so-subtle pressure to reverse this trend. A must-read for every woman.

A daring, funny, and poignant novel about the desire and duty to procreate, by one of our most brilliant and original writers. Motherhood treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood—whether or not to have children—with the intelligence, wit and originality that have won Sheila Heti international acclaim, and which led her previous work, How Should a Person Be?, to be called "one of the most talked-about books of the year" (TIME magazine). Having reached an age when most of her peers are asking themselves when they will become mothers, Heti's narrator considers, with the same urgency, whether she will do so at all. Over the course of several years, under the influence of her partner, body, family, friends, mysticism and chance, she struggles to make a moral and meaningful choice. In a compellingly direct mode that straddles the forms of the novel and the essay, Motherhood raises radical and essential questions about womanhood, parenthood, and how—and for whom—to live.