Listen to your mother : what she said then, what we're saying now

Summary: "Irreverent, thought-provoking, hilarious, and edgy: a collection of personal stories celebrating motherhood, featuring #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jenny Lawson and Jennifer Weiner, and many other notable writers. Listen to Your Mother is a fantastic awakening of why our mothers are important, taking readers on a journey through motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor. Based on the sensational national performance movement, Listen to Your Mother showcases the experiences of ordinary people of all racial, gender, and age backgrounds, from every corner of the country. This collection of essays celebrates and validates what it means to be a mother today, with honesty and candor that is arrestingly stimulating and refreshing. The stories are raw, honest, poignant, and sometimes raunchy, ranging from adoption, assimilation to emptying nests; first-time motherhood, foster-parenting, to infertility; single-parenting, LGBTQ parenting, to special-needs parenting; step-mothering; never mothering, to surrogacy; and mothering through illness to mothering through unsolicited advice. Honest, funny, and heart-wrenching, these personal stories are the collective voice of mothers among us. Whether you are one, have one, or know one, Listen to Your Mother is an emotional whirlwind that is guaranteed to entertain, amuse, and enlighten. "--

Item details

ISBN: 9780399169854 (hardback)
ISBN: 0399169857 (hardback)
Physical Description: print
246 pages ; 22 cm
Publisher: New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, [2015]

Contents / Notes

Formatted Contents Note:

Foreword / Ann Imig -- Matryoshka dolls / Mary Jo Pehl -- What matters most / Zach Wahls -- The meat grinder / Jen Rubin -- It's always bad news / Marinka -- I felt like something / Megan Stielstra -- A year at the lake / Jenny Fiore -- The broken bowl / Jennifer Ball -- Mo'betta mama / Tasneem Grace Tewogbola -- The reach of a small moment / Alexandra Rosas -- Becoming invisible / Lea Grover -- Motherhood off the beaten path / Margaret Smith -- The job of motherhood / Wendi Adams -- Not a princess / Vikki Reich -- Threads / Stacey Conner -- She knew it / Natalie Cheung Hall -- Peanut butter and jelly / Taya Dunn Johnson -- The good-bye app / Kate St. Vincent Vogl -- More than an aunt, less than a mom / Jerry Mahoney -- The confession jar / Jenny Forrester -- Unspeakable sacrifice / Angie Miller -- Shy / Haddayr Copley-Woods -- Mothering you, my son: in six chapters / Ann Breidenbach -- What if / Lisa Page Rosenberg -- Swimsuit edition / Jennifer Sutton -- The cookie jar / Patty Chang Anker -- My mother the protector / Eddy Jordan -- Cocktail playdate dropout / Stefanie Wilder-Taylor -- The mother of all fathers / Robert Shaffron -- A much-needed slap in the face / Yoon Park -- Idiopathic / Amy Wilson -- Nick's story / Nadine C. Warner -- Prepare to be judged, and possibly stabbed. / Jenny Lawson -- Monkey, speak / Robyn Rasberry -- The wondering / Greta Funk -- Be happy, have a good life, remember me / Ann Stewart Zachwieja -- My mom fought the Nazis and won / Brian Lavendel -- I want to be a nothing / Jenifer Joy Madden -- Mother: a multiplication lesson / Dana Maya -- All you need is lovey / Katie Wise -- The upside to down / Mery Smith -- Artichokes / Kathy Curto -- Does your mom play drums? / Michelle Cruz Gonzales -- Steam power / Helen Reese -- In praise of the other mother / Nancy Davis Kho -- Three little letters / Lisa Allen -- The tiny bridge-maker / Jennifer Newcomb Marine -- Bottle caps, apple trees, and hope / Sheila Quirke -- Pregnant again / Edward McCann -- Becoming da mommy / M. Penny Manson -- Mothering through the storm / Rebecca Anderson-Brown -- Waiting for my kids to wish me a happy Mother's Day / Meggan Sommerville -- The children ate my gratitude / Ann Imig -- Raised by lesbians: on my makeup-free mom, my fashion-challenged moments, and raising a Disney daughter in a feminist world / Jennifer Weiner -- Orbits / Ruth Pennebaker -- Leaps and bounds / Barbara Patrick -- Hummingbird: a love letter to the mothers at church / Liz Joynt Sandberg.