The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How To Be a Good Mom

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.