Incisive … The sharp analysis sheds light on how child development research’s individualistic focus unfairly blamed mothers for children’s outcomes … and Reddy’s candid account of struggling with feelings of inadequacy after having kids demonstrates the deleterious effects of the impossible expectations set by such studies.” —Publishers Weekly
"Intelligent and well researched, Reddy’s study offers insights that new mothers will undoubtedly find both useful and liberating. A refreshingly honest book that challenges the problematic ideals of motherhood." - Kirkus
“Reddy provides a fascinating glimpse at the evolution of parenting advice with a fresh lens that focuses on the wives of prominent historical figures who were considered parenting experts in their heyday.” —Library Journal
"Reddy exposes and indicts the shaky midcentury science … underpinning present-day [parenting] approaches … Loving your child, she finds, does not mean losing yourself.” - Booklist
"This is a brilliant book. Nancy Reddy weaves together social history and her own lived experience to tease apart the fierce love we have for our children from the brutalizing ideals of motherhood that shape an impossible worldview. I was reminded of the pain of those early baby years—the aloneness. This book would have been great company then: enraging, validating, and, in its own sharp way, deeply reassuring." - Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and We All Want Impossible Things
"Most moms know that the myth of ideal motherhood is just that: a myth. Nancy Reddy charts her own disillusionment with the ideal while also illuminating the making and the makers of the myth: white men in power. Generous, raw, and meticulously researched, The Good Mother Myth will validate you and set you free." - Sara Petersen, author of Momfluenced
"Reddy cracks open everything we take for granted about motherhood and shows us the facts are mere mythology and the 'science' is shoddy. This book is a gift to all mothers. With beautiful prose, Reddy wipes the slate clean and gives moms permission to forge their own parenting path." - Minna Dubin, author of Mom Rage
"Nancy Reddy's blend of memoir and historical reporting provides a refreshing perspective on what it means to be a 'good mother.' By seamlessly weaving together analyses of studies by 'the experts'—mostly male scientists—with her own personal experience bearing and raising a child, Reddy explains why mothers are right to prioritize their intuition, common sense, and individual path to happiness." - Lara Bazelon, author of Ambitious Like a Mother
"Always available and never angry, effortlessly caring and in tune with her children's needs; we all seem to know what defines a "good" mother. But who decided on these traits, and who elevated them to the maternal ideal? In this compelling and thought-provoking book, Reddy traces the origins of the good mother myth, leading us through a fascinating history of scientists, animal experiments, and self-proclaimed childcare experts who have shaped our understanding of how women should behave. By also sharing her own struggles with early motherhood, Reddy will have many women nodding their heads in sympathy—and frustration—at the outsized expectations put on mothers." - Carrie Mullins, author of The Book of Mothers
"For anyone who has chafed against the expectations of always-on parenting, The Good Mother Myth cuts through the cant about motherhood and shows, with refreshing honesty and sly humor, a trail of misconceptions and biases among the social scientists that popularized the concept of attachment parenting. Pairing memoir with history, Reddy interweaves her recollections of early parenthood with the story of the scientific men, and occasional women, who popularized attachment parenting, revealing its roots in postwar anxieties about women in the workforce and unearthing the biases and messy personal lives of the scientists who championed the myth of the perfect mother. Along the way, she offers reassurance for any mother who wonders if she’s good enough." - Emily C. Bloom, author of I Cannot Control Everything Forever
11/01/2024
Poet Reddy (writing, Stockton Univ.; coeditor, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood) shares with readers that she bought into the myths that perfect parenting could be achieved through careful planning and preparation. Her perspective significantly changed, however, after she gave birth. In this book, she navigates the history of mothering advice, starting in the 1950s, with its hits and (mostly) misses. Her book shows that throughout time, a "good mother" was imagined as white, heterosexual, married, and middle-class. Reddy compares her own experience of parenting while attaining a doctorate with that of Clara Harlow, who had to abandon her studies after marrying scientist and self-proclaimed parenting expert Harry Harlow. Reddy goes on to shatter many assumptions and myths about parenting, like the idea that "good" mothers hate to leave their baby in anyone else's care. VERDICT Reddy provides a fascinating glimpse at the evolution of parenting advice with a fresh lens that focuses on the wives of prominent historical figures who were considered parenting experts in their heyday.
2024-10-25
Probing the history of “the good mother.”
As a feminist and daughter of a devoted single mother, Stockton University writing professor Reddy was shocked to find herself feeling more like a frazzled “leaking mammal” in the weeks after giving birth to her first child than a fulfilled, “blissed-out” new mom. The unconditional love she had been taught she would automatically feel did not materialize, and for a time, Reddy believed that being a good mother was beyond her reach. In a book that draws on her experiences as a new mother and on research into the mid-20th-century social scientists and doctors whose well-intentioned work ultimately created “bad ideas” about good mothering, she begins by looking at Harry Harlow, whose studies of baby monkeys and their cloth surrogate mothers laid the groundwork for the myth that the best mothers were as “constantly available” as they were “endlessly adoring.” Building on Harlow’s work, John Bowlby developed his theory of mother-child attachment, which claimed that mothers were naturally designed to exist in a private, caregiving dyad with their children. Pediatrician Benjamin Spock later echoed the ideas of both in his bestselling child-rearing manual. But as the author suggests, his advice that women follow their instincts and their (male) doctors’ instructions served only to undercut women’s confidence in their own mothering abilities. Reddy’s own experiences—like learning to accept help from others outside her family—taught her two important lessons: that children—and mothers—thrive the most “when cared for by a whole community” and that love is as much felt as it is built over time. Intelligent and well researched, Reddy’s study offers insights that new mothers will undoubtedly find both useful and liberating.
A refreshingly honest book that challenges the problematic ideals of motherhood.
