Genre: Nonfiction, Parenting
What's the first thing a woman does when she thinks she
might be pregnant? She Googles. And it goes downhill from there. While the
internet is full of calming and cheerily supportive articles, it's also littered
with hyper-judgmental message boards and heaps of contradictory and scolding
information. Motherhood Smotherhood takes parents through the trenches of new
parenting, warning readers of the pleasures and perils of mommy blogs, new
parent groups, self-described "lactivists," sleep fascists, incessant
trend pieces on working versus non-working mothers, and the place where free
time and self-esteem goes to die: Pinterest (back away from the hand-made
flower headbands for baby!)
JJ Keith interweaves discussions of what "it takes a
village" really means (hint: a lot of unwanted advice from elderly
strangers who may have grown up in actual villages) and a take-down of the
rising "make your own baby food" movement (just mush a banana with a
fork!) with laugh-out-loud observations about the many mistakes she made as a
frantic new mother with too much access to high speed internet and a lot of
questions. Keith cuts to the truth--whether it's about "perfect"
births, parenting gurus, the growing tide of vaccine rejecters, the joy of
blanketing Facebook with baby pics, or germophobia--to move conversations about
parenting away from experts espousing blanket truths to amateurs relishing in
what a big, messy pile of delight and trauma having a baby is.
My Review
JJ Keith hits the parenting nail on the head. As a mother of four daughters, I have read just about every pregnancy and parenting book there is. Motherhood Smotherhood is a breath of fresh air. Instead of convincing the reader to parent a certain way, Keith encourages her audience to be confident in their parenting decisions. She touches on many key issues that are widely criticized, such as breastfeeding (in public!), vaccinations, food choices, and more.
After reading Motherhood Smotherhood, I feel as if JJ Keith and I could be great friends. Her book gives the best advice about parenting: Do it your way, and don't worry about the judgmental looks you may receive. It's a reminder that we can all be amazing parents without getting sucked into the latest silly trends or sanctimonious mom drama.
I definitely recommend this book to parents everywhere. Common sense needs to become, well....more common. This parenting book is a great place to start.
Author Bio
JJ Keith has written about being a crappy attachment parent
for Salon, explored the disturbing undertones of Thomas the Tank Engine for
TheRumpus.net, come out as pro-vaccine for The Huffington Post, interviewed
Samantha Irby for Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, differentiated being
judgmental and having an opinion for Role/Reboot, admitted to a bare knuckled
brawl with a dude for The Nervous Breakdown, examined the phenomenon of
"don't touch the bump" t-shirts for Babble, and explained what new
moms have in common with teenage boys for The Hairpin.
Her writing has been syndicated in the Sydney Morning
Herald, iVillage Australia, Mamamia, and Alternet, and she's taken her work to
the stage with The Moth, Happy Hour Story Experiment, Write Club, and Expressing
Motherhood and spoken about parenting issues with APM's Marketplace, HuffPost
Live, and on a panel at the 2013 LA Times Festival of Books. Her micro-memoir
won a $2,500 prize from Reader's Digest and was anthologized in The Best Life
Stories: 150 Real-life Tales of Resilience, Joy, and Hope-All 150 Words or
Less!
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her two
children.
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