A new way to think about the transition to motherhood

Journalist Claire Howarth captures the voices of new mothers experiencing pressure to project an outward image of ease, when inside they're wrestling with chaotic emotions. She describes "The Goddess Myth" that the motherhood transition is blissful and how real women are left feeling ashamed of their more complex experiences.

Rachel Cusk is a powerful novelist who wrote this witty, deep and laugh out loud account of her first year of motherhood, with all the gritty details on her personal identity transformation. It's a psychologically vivid account of matrescence unlike any other that will leave you feeling affirmed, inspired and politically curious.

This short essay makes a clear argument for an idea that Freud took volumes to describe: it's natural to feel two conflicting emotions at the same time. Leslie explains that ambivalence is not the same thing as indifference, and a universal part of the human condition. He draws from a variety of thinkers including F. Scott Fitzgerald who described the intellectual value of ambivalence: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

Twenty years ago, Daniel Stern M.D., a pioneering psychiatrist who studied mothers and infants, joined with a pediatrician and journalist to write the first user-friendly medical account of how when a baby is born, so is a mother.

For a primary source and historical perspective, check out this collection of original essays by pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, a founding thinker in attachment and psychoanalytic theory. His concept of the "good-enough mother" describes that healthy and loving parenting does not require a mother to be perfect.

This is one of the most widely used self-help books to support pregnant women and new mothers. It answers common questions about postpartum depression/anxiety and offers Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbook exercises to help with stress and worry.

For an academic perspective on how maternal identity is underexplored within the historical scholarship of developmental psychology.