O'Connell is a smart twentysomething who treats her pregnancy like a new project, researching and planning. She envisions a natural birth and a year of wholesome breast feeding. But things do not go as she expects. Life throws curveballs, and after 40 hours of contractions, she opts for a C-section. She manages to nurse for a year but resents her baby's control over her body. This is not a book about the wonders of motherhood but about the tension...

"An exquisite memoir about how to live--and love--every day with 'death in the room,' from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air. 'We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other.' Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer--one small spot....

Traces the rewards and pitfalls of a Chinese mother's exercise in extreme parenting, describing the exacting standards applied to grades, music lessons, and avoidance of Western cultural practices.

Describes the experiences of three women soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq to reveal how their military service has affected their friendship, personal lives and families, detailing the realities of their work on bases and in war zones and how their choices and losses shaped their perspectives.

"The time for do-overs is over. Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said "next year." Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James's soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR's All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents...

"A renowned expert in the women's leadership movement, Tiffany Dufu was once like so many other driven and talented women who have been brought up to believe that to have it all, they must do it all. But after she gave birth to her first child, she struggled to accomplish everything she thought she needed to in order to succeed. Dufu began to feel that achieving her career and personal goals was an impossibility. Eventually, she discovered the solution:...

"A House on Stilts tells the story of one woman's struggle to reclaim wholeness while mothering a son addicted to heroin. America's opioid crisis is a national emergency, a war at home. Within this battle, family members form the first line of defense. Their mission is hellishly risky: opioid overdose now kills more than 100 Americans each day, and that number is growing. Many who die are teens or young adults. In spite of this, no parent expects...

When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called "an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor" (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations....