In her last book, outspoken urban mom Ariel Gore offered help for real-world mothers. In The Mother Trip, she gives her inspiration, encouragement, and moral support to unconventional moms. In these essays, she bashes the stereotype of the "good mother" and encourages readers to follow their instincts and redefine motherhood in their own terms.
In The Mother Trip, her follow-up to the cult classic, The Hip Mama Survival Guide, Ariel Gore offers the kind of down-to-earth, truthful mothering conversations that you'd expect to have with a best girlfriend. In this collection of essays--some lasting one page, some stretching to five--Gore deftly spotlights the messy corners of motherhood: sleeplessness, depression, weird pregnancy dreams, the restless hunger for creativity, and the passionate love of children. This is comforting turf, especially for mothers who have felt patronized and bored by the numerous advice-laden mothering manuals on the market. Gore mixes straight talk with dreamier musings, using sensual details and thoughtful subtext to illuminate the spirituality of motherhood. (Her essay about being 19, pregnant, and living with a transient boyfriend in Italy is a masterfully crafted gem.) A sexy, political, and highly conscious mother who refuses to diminish herself, Gore is one of the best mothering role models to show up on the written page. In the essay "Children Need Interesting Mothers," she writes,
We need time to ourselves, moments of awareness, connections, meaningful work. We need cheap art, good sex, nights at the bowling alley and days at the beach. We need good coffee, hearty meals, lush gardens and time to relax and enjoy our lives without worrying so much that we are good enough mothers or skinny enough girlfriends or wives. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can mother our children soulfully and lead lives worth living.
Amen, sister. --Gail Hudson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Yay for Hip Mamas!:
This book is awesome. Funny, smart and a really quick read.... After wading through at least 40 baby books and childrens books this one really got me. Strait talk, lots of laughs, I highly reccommend this book!
Really helped me.....:
get through that first month! lol I got it when my son was just born and I was having a serious hard time adjusting and newborns HARD HARD work. Very overwhelming. Some of the stories in here made me laugh and look at things in a different perspective, just what I needed!
What's the Point?:
I am currently expecting my first child, so maybe I don't have enough first-hand knowledge to really appreciate the message here, but halfway through, I started to feel mildly irritated by this book. Three quarters of the way through, I was actively disgusted, though I can't put my finger on exactly why. I bought this book thinking that it would provide a good counter-balance to a lot of the mainstream parenting literature that wants us to believe that parenting is all joy, all the time. What I got from... more info
Fantastic!:
I loved this book. Ariel Gore made me feel empowered, encouraged and important. There was no "expert advice." Nobody telling me that what I am doing is too much or not enough. I felt justified and understood. As soon as I finished reading The Mother Trip, I lent it to my friend, a mother of two. I think every mother should read this book.
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