"Motherhood, Russian-style" offers an intimate look at modern Russian mothers and how they are raising their children today. In the course of researching this book, the author interviewed hundreds of Russian mothers, living in Moscow, many corners of Russia, and quite literally all over the world. "Motherhood, Russian-style" takes readers on a very personal journey through all aspects on raising children, the "Russian" way. Despite their many individual approaches, there are some unifying elements of Russian motherhood, placing modern Russian mothers quite comfortably somewhere in between Asian tiger mums and the more laid-back parenting styles popular in America and Europe. A light read filled with many personal anecdotes, this book includes a glossary of classic Russian childhood words, and takes a close look at many of the aspects of raising children which make Russian mamas unique. From dachas to shapkas, kasha to borsch, chess to ballet, the trials and tribulations of raising Russian children make for an entertaining and enjoyable read. Mothers may even discover a few clever tips along the way, such as how Russian babies are potty trained well before the age of two, or how Russian mothers easily get their young children to eat healthy, home-made food. 10% of all worldwide royalties received by the author from sales of "Motherhood, Russian-style" will be immediately donated to international charities actively aiding refugee families and children in need in war-torn eastern Ukraine. Tanja Maier is American, speaks Russian fluently, and found herself a single mother raising her infant son in Moscow in 2006, after having lived in Russia for almost a decade. Tanja is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and an alumnus of Harvard Business School. Tanja lives in Vienna, Austria with her family.

Women without Men illuminates Russia's "quiet revolution" in family life through the lens of single motherhood. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and interview data, Jennifer Utrata focuses on the puzzle of how single motherhood—frequently seen as a social problem in other contexts—became taken for granted in the New Russia. While most Russians, including single mothers, believe that two-parent families are preferable, many also contend that single motherhood is an inevitable by-product of two intractable problems: "weak men" (reflected, they argue, in the country's widespread, chronic male alcoholism) and a "weak state" (considered so because of Russia's unequal economy and poor social services). Among the daily struggles to get by and get ahead, single motherhood, Utrata finds, is seldom considered a tragedy. Utrata begins by tracing the history of the cultural category of "single mother," from the state policies that created this category after World War II, through the demographic trends that contributed to rising rates of single motherhood, to the contemporary tension between the cultural ideal of the two-parent family and the de facto predominance of the matrifocal family. Providing a vivid narrative of the experiences not only of single mothers themselves but also of the grandmothers, other family members, and nonresident fathers who play roles in their lives, Women without Men maps the Russian family against the country’s profound postwar social disruptions and dislocations.

"Lyrical and emotionally gutting." —O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE “Intellectually satisfying [and] artistically profound.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW) “Mesmeric.”—THE PARIS REVIEW “Vividly awesome and truly great." —EILEEN MYLES “Gorgeous, gutting, unforgettable." —LENI ZUMAS “Brilliant.” —MICHELLE TEA An arresting memoir equal parts refugee-coming-of-age story, feminist manifesto, and meditation on motherhood, displacement, gender politics, and art that follows award-winning writer Sophia Shalmiyev’s flight from the Soviet Union, where she was forced to abandon her estranged mother, and her subsequent quest to find her. Russian sentences begin backward, Sophia Shalmiyev tells us on the first page of her striking lyrical memoir. To understand the end of her story, we must go back to the beginning. Born to a Russian mother and an Azerbaijani father, Shalmiyev was raised in the stark oppressiveness of 1980s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where anti-Semitism and an imbalance of power were omnipresent in her home. At just eleven years old, Shalmiyev’s father stole her away to America, forever abandoning her estranged alcoholic mother, Elena. Motherless on a tumultuous voyage to the states, terrified in a strange new land, Shalmiyev depicts in urgent, poetic vignettes her emotional journeys through an uncharted world as an immigrant, artist, and, eventually, as a mother of two. As an adult, Shalmiyev voyages back to Russia to search endlessly for the mother she never knew—in her pursuit, we witness an arresting, impassioned meditation on art-making, gender politics, displacement, and most potently, motherhood.

From the author of How Should a Person Be? (“one of the most talked-about books of the year”—Time Magazine) and the New York Times Bestseller Women in Clothes comes a daring novel about whether to have children. In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and made How Should A Person Be? required reading for a generation. In her late thirties, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home. Motherhood is a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about how—and for whom—to live.

Undo Motherhood explores the reasons why a significant number of women around the world today regret becoming mothers. The women in this project love their children and are excellent mothers when judged according to society's standards, and yet they hate the oppressive mother role that robbed them of their own existence and suffer through it in silence, feeling it to be the worst mistake they have made. In this book, Diana Karklin combines two narrative languages: her photography and her interviews with women. It is divided into seven chapters: anger, fear, isolation, exhaustion, guilt, resignation and acceptance. The last chapter stresses the importance of accepting regret in order to be able to deal with it in a constructive way without harming the children. Diana chose to present the seven stories from seven different countries as separate booklets - each with a 'closed' cover - in a slipcase, to highlight the loneliness of these mothers trapped in their homes and condemned to silence. As much as Diana would want to see them as a collective voice, the reality is different. ,,An honest, courageous, and radical book that without passing judgement gives a voice to women struggling with the experience of a social role that they do not want, experiencing guilt and the burden of moral expectations. A book that allows us to explore the other dimension of motherhood, a dimension that is always hidden in the shadow. It is necessary to look at motherhood as it is in all its aspects, in order to free it from prejudices, and to present vital options to both mothers and children who find themselves in this situation," --Ana Casas Broda, photographer and author of Kinderwunsch, that explores the complexity of motherhood and the relationship with her two sons.

In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. • "A must-read for anyone who can’t get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that Yellowjackets exemplifies." —Vulture One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else... An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms. As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mommies involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem. An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.

In our mothers’ day there were good mothers, indifferent mothers, and occasionally, great mothers. Today we have only Bad Mothers: If you work, you’re neglectful; if you stay home, you’re smothering. If you discipline, you’re buying them a spot on the shrink’s couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as a “bad mother”? Writing with remarkable candor, and dispensing much hilarious and helpful advice along the way—Is breast best? What should you do when your daughter dresses up as a “ho” for Halloween?—Ayelet Waldman says it's time for women to get over it and get on with it in this wry, unflinchingly honest, and always insightful memoir on modern motherhood.