My rating: 3/5 stars
Goodreads

Synopsis:

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.

It’s been years since I read a collection of feminist essays – probably since Dropped Threads in the early 00s. I love reading and I love feminism, but these days I tend to get my fill of non-fiction essays on blogs. Many of the contributors to The Good Mother Myth are bloggers and the book didn’t quite exceed the sum of its blog posts, but it was a good attempt. Rather than my usual list of favourite stories/pieces, here are the things I look for in a nonfiction anthology, and how this book stacked up:

Credibility
Anyone can write a blog (hi, case in point!) but a book has some credibility attached to it. Then there are the little extras to add an ever greater sense of it – blurbs and forewords and introductions. Continue reading →