The Good Mother Myth

November 1, 2024

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. VERDICT Reddy provides a fascinating glimpse at the evolution of parenting advice with a fresh lens that focuses on the wives of prominent historical figures who were considered parenting experts in their heyday.

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 18, 2024
Flawed mid-20th-century child development research helped create unrealistic expectations for mothers, according to this incisive treatise. Poet Reddy (The Long Devotion) excoriates British psychiatrist John Bowlby’s 1950s studies on juvenile delinquents and children orphaned by WWII, suggesting his conclusion that the “most important factor in a child’s mental health was the constant care and devotion of their mother” was undermined by the fact that he didn’t collect data on how poverty or other social factors affected the kids. Much of the research implicitly encouraged pushing women out of the workforce after WWII, Reddy argues, describing how generations of researchers have used variations on Mary Ainsworth’s “strange situation” lab setup, in which the psychologist observed how children reacted to their caregivers’ absence, to suggest that sending kids to day care might cause long-term emotional harm. The sharp analysis sheds light on how child development research’s individualistic focus unfairly blamed mothers for children’s outcomes while letting economic inequality and other political factors off the hook, and Reddy’s candid account of struggling with feelings of inadequacy after having kids demonstrates the deleterious effects of the impossible expectations set by such studies (“I cried and raged and cried. I felt terrible, and I felt alone”). It’s a perceptive argument that flimsy science has been used to guilt-trip mothers for decades. Agent: Maggie Cooper, Aevitas Creative Management.

December 1, 2024
Probing the history of "the good mother." As a feminist and daughter of a devoted single mother, Stockton University writing professor Reddy was shocked to find herself feeling more like a frazzled "leaking mammal" in the weeks after giving birth to her first child than a fulfilled, "blissed-out" new mom. The unconditional love she had been taught she would automatically feel did not materialize, and for a time, Reddy believed that being a good mother was beyond her reach. In a book that draws on her experiences as a new mother and on research into the mid-20th-century social scientists and doctors whose well-intentioned work ultimately created "bad ideas" about good mothering, she begins by looking at Harry Harlow, whose studies of baby monkeys and their cloth surrogate mothers laid the groundwork for the myth that the best mothers were as "constantly available" as they were "endlessly adoring." Building on Harlow's work, John Bowlby developed his theory of mother-child attachment, which claimed that mothers were naturally designed to exist in a private, caregiving dyad with their children. Pediatrician Benjamin Spock later echoed the ideas of both in his bestselling child-rearing manual. But as the author suggests, his advice that women follow their instincts and their (male) doctors' instructions served only to undercut women's confidence in their own mothering abilities. Reddy's own experiences--like learning to accept help from others outside her family--taught her two important lessons: that children--and mothers--thrive the most "when cared for by a whole community" and that love is as much felt as it is built over time. Intelligent and well researched, Reddy's study offers insights that new mothers will undoubtedly find both useful and liberating. A refreshingly honest book that challenges the problematic ideals of motherhood.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2024
Where did our modern ideas of motherhood come from? And how can we explain the yawning gulf between the effortlessly perfect mothers society expects and the struggles real moms face daily? Reddy exposes and indicts the shaky midcentury science--almost always specifically about and for white, middle-class women--underpinning present-day approaches such as attachment theory parenting. From psychologist Harry Harlow's famous cloth mother monkeys through the BBC dispatches of Donald Woods Winnicott and the gentler parenting espoused by Dr. Spock, Reddy lays bare the many oversights, cognitive leaps, and biases that riddle this work. Moreover, the wives of these motherhood experts were often left to shoulder the burden at home alone, in some cases setting aside their own aspirations. Reddy shares her nightmarish journey through early parenthood as she worked toward her doctorate, determined not to fall behind because of the baby. A better path forward, informed by the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead and drawing from the strength of communal care, is possible. Loving your child, she finds, does not need to mean losing yourself.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.