First published 1998
Aminatta Forna examines how contemporary society has abandoned the liberation of women from traditional mothering constraints. She documents a cultural shift that began in the 1980s and accelerated through the 1990s, when media, courts, government, medicine, and popular psychology began reasserting restrictive views of maternal roles. Forna traces the Western idealization of motherhood through historical, Christian, literary, and mythological sources. She argues that this backlash creates losers in a system that prioritizes children's needs while ignoring mothers' requirements. The book calls for society to abandon sentimental excess around motherhood and create better balance between maternal and child needs. Forna provides analysis of why conservative motherhood concepts have resurged and offers a framework for rethinking parental responsibility in modern contexts.
Genres: gender-studies, feminism, sociology, non-fiction, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: critical, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: cultural-critique, social-commentary
Period: 1980s, 1990s
288 pages · Hardcover · Harper Collins