Book picks similar to
It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons by Andrea J. BuchananKaren E. Bender
parenting
non-fiction
nonfiction
essays
Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food
Gill Rapley - 2008
It shows parents why baby-led weaning makes sense and gives them the confidence to trust their baby's natural skills and instincts. Filled with practical tips for getting started and the low-down on what to expect, Baby-led Weaning explodes the myth that babies need to be spoon-fed and shows why self-feeding from the start is the healthiest way for your child to develop. Your baby is allowed to decide how much they want to eat, how to eat it and to experiment with everything at their own pace. Baby-led weaning is a common-sense, safe, easy and enjoyable approach to feeding your baby. No more purées and weaning spoons, and no more mealtime battles. Simply let your baby feed himself healthy family food.
Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation
Aisha Tyler - 2013
In her book Self-Inflicted Wounds, comedian, actress, and cohost of CBS’s daytime hit show The Talk, Aisha Tyler recounts a series of epic mistakes and hilarious stories of crushing personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way. The essays in Self-Inflicted Wounds are refreshingly and sometimes brutally honest, surprising, and laugh-out-loud funny, vividly translating the brand of humor Tyler has cultivated through her successful standup career, as well as the strong voice and unique point of view she expresses on her taste-making comedy podcast Girl on Guy. Riotous, revealing, and wonderfully relatable, Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation is about the power of calamity to shape life, learning, and success.
Reasons to Stay Alive
Matt Haig - 2015
Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt’s inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (and now-wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it. Everyone’s lives are touched by mental illness: if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does. Matt’s frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, Matt is adamant that the oldest cliché is the truest—there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.
The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be
Armin A. Brott - 1995
Revised and expanded for the second edition, this text provides an action-packed, month-by-month guide to all the emotional, financial and even physical changes a father-to-be may experience during the course of his partner's pregnancy.
Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother
Christina Baker Kline - 1997
This unique collection of original essays features contributions by Mona Simpson, Meg Wolitzer, Susan Cheever, Sara Bird, Naomi Wolf, and other contemporary female writers on the joys and frustrations of the first year of motherhood.
Parenting With Love and Logic
Foster W. Cline - 1990
Learn how to parent effectively while teaching your children responsibility and growing their character. Establish healthy control through easy-to-implement steps without anger, threats, nagging, or power struggles. Indexed for easy reference.
Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children
Angela J. Hanscom - 2016
Today’s kids have adopted sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens. But more and more, studies show that children need “rough and tumble” outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. Disturbingly, a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotion regulation and sensory processing issues, and aggressiveness at school recess break. So, how can you ensure your child is fully engaging their body, mind, and all of their senses? Using the same philosophy that lies at the heart of her popular TimberNook program—that nature is the ultimate sensory experience, and that psychological and physical health improves for children when they spend time outside on a regular basis—author Angela Hanscom offers several strategies to help your child thrive, even if you live in an urban environment. Today it is rare to find children rolling down hills, climbing trees, or spinning in circles just for fun. We’ve taken away merry-go-rounds, shortened the length of swings, and done away with teeter-totters to keep children safe. Children have fewer opportunities for unstructured outdoor play than ever before, and recess times at school are shrinking due to demanding educational environments. With this book, you’ll discover little things you can do anytime, anywhere to help your kids achieve the movement they need to be happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit.
Raising Confident Boys: 100 Tips For Parents And Teachers
Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer - 2001
Boys who lack appropriate emotional support from the adults close to them are at risk of believing they don't fit in and are likely to act accordingly, engaging in risky behaviors-including at worst using drugs and acting out violently. Raising Confident Boys teaches readers what makes boys prone to low self-esteem and provides practical, effective tips for managing these situations as they arise.
Lizz Free Or Die
Lizz Winstead - 2012
Her questions rattled people because they exposed the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in the people and institutions she confronted. Yet she didn't let that stop her from pursuing her dreams.Funny and biting, honest and poignant, this no-holds-barred collection gives an in-depth look into the life of one of today's most influential comic voices. In writing about her childhood longing to be a priest, her role in developing The Daily Show, and of her often problematic habit of diving into everything head first, asking questions later (resulting in multiple rescue-dog adoptions and travel disasters), Lizz Winstead has tapped an outrageous and heartfelt vein of the all-too-human comedy.
This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America
Joni B. Cole - 2002
This Day in the Life shares more than thirty complete diaries and hundreds of additional candid moments.Full of intimate details and laugh-out-loud truths, and drawing on the experiences of women of all ages and backgrounds, this diverse collection is a surprising reminder of how much we all have in common. If you’ve ever wondered what the woman standing in front of you in line was thinking, This Day in the Life is a refreshing glimpse at how we really spend our days—and the value of every single one.7:03 a.m. Carryn wakes to nurse and I want to sleep. My husband pretends not to hear her, but sometimes I wake him up just so he can see my job is twenty-four hours a day. —Jenee Guidry, 30, mom of four8:20 a.m. I just read two Psalms aloud to Dad. In the last few months of his life he loved for me to read them to him, both in person and on the phone. I still do it, hoping they reach him in the other world. —Rosanne Cash, 49, singer/songwriter4:00 p.m. The cast of Friends is on with Oprah. That was one of the few shows I watched every week. My real friends suck. Not a single one called me on my birthday. —Kim Olsovsky, 31, teacher1915 There’s a boom in the distance, rocket or mortar. I am sitting next to a blast wall built from sandbags. Do I stay here? Do I go into the trailer and lie on the floor? Six minutes pass. I am about to miss dinner. —Beth Garland, 42, army sergeant
Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe
Sarah Mae - 2013
It's for those who have ever wondered what happened to all their ideals for what having children would be like. For those who have ever felt like all the "experts" have "clearly" never had a child like theirs. For those who have prayed for a mentor. For those who ever felt lost and alone in motherhood.In" Desperate" you will find the story of one young mother's honest account of the desperate feelings experienced in motherhood and one experienced mentor's realistic and gentle exhortations that were forged in the trenches of raising her own four children.Also in Desperate:* QR codes and links at the end of each chapter that lead to videos with Sarah Mae and Sally talking about the chapter* Practical steps to take during the desperate times* Bible study and journal exercises in each chapter that will lead you to identify ways in which you can grow as a mom* Mentoring advice for real-life situations* Q & A section with Sally where she answers readers questions
Unbuttoned: Women Open Up About the Pleasures, Pains, and Politics of Breastfeeding
Dana Sullivan - 2009
A collection of women's thoughts about the pleasures, pains, and politics of breastfeeding.
Bravey
Alexi Pappas - 2021
When her father started signing her up for sports teams as a way to keep his bereaved daughter busy, female athletes became some of the first women Pappas looked up to, and she became a girl with a goal: to be an Olympian. Despite setbacks and hardships, Pappas held fast to that dream, putting in the tremendous hard work, both mentally and physically, and letting nothing stand in her way until she achieved it, making her Olympic debut as a runner in 2016. Unflinching, often exuberant, and always entertaining, Bravey showcases Pappas's signature, charming voice as she reflects upon the touchstone moments in her life and the lessons that have powered her career as both an athlete and artist--chief among them, how to be brave. She faces obstacles with optimism and finds the dark moments as important to her process as the breakthroughs, from high school awkwardness to post-Olympic depression, offering valuable wisdom on the benefits of embracing what hurts, both physical and emotional. To Pappas, bravery is inward-facing; it's all in how you feel about yourself, as much about always believing in yourself as it is about running toward your goals. Pappas's experiences reveal how anyone can overcome hardship, befriend pain, celebrate victory, relish the loyalty found in teammates, and claim joy. In short: how anyone can be a bravey.
Now My Heart is Full: A Memoir
Laura June - 2018
It wasn’t a thought she was used to having. Laura was in second grade when she realized her mother was an alcoholic. As the years went by, she spiraled deeper, becoming borderline abusive, and by the time of her death a few years before Zelda’s birth, the two had drifted apart entirely. In Now My Heart Is Full, Laura June explores how raising her daughter forced her to come to terms with her own mother’s tragic legacy and recognize the connective tissue that binds together the three generations of women. She also confronts the complicated place that women’s drinking often occupies and interrogates the culture of drinking that surrounds our ideas of motherhood, reflecting on her own decision not to drink.In beautiful and irreverent prose, she describes how coming to grips with the fact that Zelda would never know her grandmother, while trying to be the best mother she could be, forced her to reevaluate her own mother, who tried her best to raise her children while struggling with addiction. By confronting the day-to-day frustrations of new motherhood she exposes how, even a generation later, we still do not have the language to fully discuss the change that a woman undergoes when she becomes a parent. And only by experiencing the pain and joy of it herself is she able to make peace with her mother’s memory at last and find that, to her surprise, the two have more in common than she ever knew.
A Midwife in Amish Country: Celebrating God's Gift of Life
Kim Woodard Osterholzer - 2018
Sara Wickham, author, midwifery lecturer, and consultant Kim Osterholzer, a midwife who's caught over 500 babies since 1993, ushers readers behind the doors of Amish homes as she recounts her lively and life-changing adventures learning the heart and craft of midwifery. In A Midwife in Amish Country, Kim chronicles the escapades of her nine-year apprenticeship grappling with the joys and struggles of homebirth as she tags along with the woman who helped her birth her own children at home. With drama and insight, she recounts the beauty and painstaking effort of those early years spent catching babies next to crackling woodstoves, under lantern light, and in farmhouses powered by windmills for running water and with outhouses for bathrooms. Some births kept her from home for days on end; others she missed by heart-pounding seconds. Yet every birth enthralled her, whether she was halting hemorrhages, blowing air into tiny lungs, or bouncing through wild rides in ambulances. Too many times to count, Kim stumbled home feeling overwhelmed and inadequate—yet as she strained against her misgivings, self-doubts, and seemingly insurmountable challenges, those sacred moments transformed her into a woman of power and conviction. Her experiences taught her the heart of true midwifery—stroking, smoothing, wiping, tidying, nourishing, comforting, hearing, encouraging, validating, and witnessing. Slowly, steadily, Kim learned to play her part as midwife to the Amish—women unflagging in their passion to welcome new lives—and at last, tried and tested, took her rightful place among them.