motherhood

You’ve likely encountered the work of writer and editor Ada Calhoun—whether it’s her critique of Inga Muscio’s Cunt for Nerve.com, her editorial work on Babble.com, of which she was founding editor, her pieces for Time and New York magazines, or her blog conversation 90s Woman—where, among many other admirable feminist pursuits, she and author Kara Jesella try to pinpoint the "most 90s woman" song of 2010.

Now Calhoun has published her first book, Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids, which chronicles her life as a new mother and outlines her parenting philosophy. Consider her the feminist lit voice for a back-to-basics approach to mamahood in the era of "helicopter parenting," the obsessive Gen X and Y response to the laissez-faire style of their parents. It may just be the only parenting book blurbed by Kathleen Hanna.

Page Turner recently interviewed Calhoun about her take on parenting culture, the gender spectrum in raising a boy, her "get out of hell" mantra for crisis moments, and how playground life circa 2010 really can evoke Heathers-era teen flicks.

Peggy Orenstein grapples with it and so do many other feminist mamas, aunts, sisters, cousins, dads and uncles: what to buy your girl-feminist. A Bitch reader named Maura recently wrote to us asking readers to weigh in about the "best books for budding feminists," especially six- and eight-year-old girls.

So, please take two seconds to channel your feminist girl-self and talk about the fiction that made you feel like you could do anything and become anyone.

I asked Kimmie David, one of the owners of Bluestockings—the radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan—to share her picks for the best feminist fiction or nonfiction books for girls. Read on for her recommendations!

Normally I get hives when I see a mom-word like momtrepreneur, but I've been using momoversary for a few years now. What does it mean? It means today is the day I became a mom. It's a way to acknowledge that my daughter's birthday isn't just about her, it's also about me. Yeah, I'm selfish like that. Honestly it came about because one of my best friends said something a few years before I became a mom that we should give our moms presents on our birthdays, not the other way around. She's not only crafty, but whip smart too.

So now that I have a ton more mom friends, I tell them "Happy Momoversary" on their kid's birthdays. I do try to aim for the eldest, but hey, each kid is a new anniversary of motherhood.

There are three books about black women and motherhood that rocked my world when I read them: Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood; I'm Every Woman: Remixed Stories of Marriage, Motherhood, and Work; and a novel, Jump at the Sun.  Lucky me, I also got to interview the authors, Cecelie S. Berry, Lonnae O'Neal Parker, and Kim McLarin, respectively.  Read on for those interviews and my reviews of the books...

The following was apparently an ad that NBC refused to show during the Super Bowl. It is a commercial featuring an ultra sound of an unborn baby--which all wraps up into an image of Obama. The basic message being: if Obama's mother had aborted him because it was going to be "hard" to raise him, the U.S. never would have achieved the historic election of a black man."

Sweet.