@destini.ann on the real reason you can't stop yelling

It's so difficult to choose only one video of hers to post because everything she posts is useful, wise, compassionate, interesting, easy to take in. I think she's the #1 parenting account to follow.

@jothemama on teaching children about emotions

She clarifies in a follow-up video that she loves "gentle parenting" but the example she's criticizing isn't "gentle parenting" because it's enabling, rather than parenting. She adds that for emotions to be valid, they need to be based on truth. 

@mary_says on kids testing boundaries

Mary is a mother via her job as a professional nanny. Her account is packed with knowledge, wisdom, and tips for raising children. I find she's non-shaming and gentle in her delivery to parents and her voice is soothing AF.

@nickiwildflower on open adoption

This queer mom of two babies three months apart, adopted from different moms, shares their family's unique arrangement of close ties to the birth moms and their families. She shares an expansive and non-possessive view of parenting.

@amyoverthinks on loving our children versus loving parenting itself

Non-binary mom Amy draws an articulate distinction between how we can feel about our children versus how we feel about parenting.

@iam_ebo on a non-binary parent using "Mom"

I was so excited to find this video because I just knew more people would understand "mom" as a role, separate from gender. 

@thatdarnchat on seeming double standards between dads' and moms' personal time

Laura Danger puts these making-spouse-miserable-as-joke tropes into context.

@jfisher62 on how moms should feel entitled to be appreciated: as PEOPLE!

I <3 so many of his videos. They mostly cover learning how to become a decent husband. Texting his account to a partner could serve as a gentle prod.

@sharon.a.life on deciding not to be the default parent for soccer

Sharon is a bipolar mom of 6 kids with a lot of great content. Here, she describes what it feels like to not have to hold so many details in her head for just one parenting role. 

@nominal.naomi on inducing lactation as a trans mom

Lactation can be induced by adoptive moms, trans moms, and, yes, even men. The endearing and brilliant Naomi cites some protocol to help. 

@shewearssocks's strategy for motivating and organizing kid work vs. gaming

Pippa is a totally charming autistic mom with autistic children full of articulate insights about autism. I adore this economic system she invented.  

Birth Strike by Jenny Brown

By showing global trends, among other arguments, Brown makes a solid case for anti-abortion and anti-contraception movements being driven by governmental fears of lagging population growth. Essentially, the Christian right is the scapegoat and pawn to the true driving force of reproductive oppression.

The Myths of Motherhood by Shari L. Thurer

Exactly the book I wanted to find (or write), Thurer delivers. She examines how concepts of "good" mothering vary across time and cultures. She shows how we arrived at the unsustainable model of "intensive mothering" we have today. It's an accessible, highly readable retrospective.

Inventing Motherhood by Ann Dally

More academic in writing and tone than Thurer's book, Dally also looks back through historical settings. 

The Juggling Mother by Amanda D. Watson

Watson shows how privileged white moms perpetuate unrealistic standards of capacity for productivity, and also are allowed to "come undone" in ways for which women of colour are condemned.

They Call It Love by Alva Gotby

A capitalist-feminist analysis, this book is readable but would be academic and dry to some people. If you're familiar or willing to learn some theory vocabulary (especially how the word "reproduction" is used in work-labour theory), this book will blow your mind open. It shows how capitalism would fall apart were it not for women (primarily) doing care work, and how capitalism calls it "love" to trick us all into thinking we just choose to do this because we're naturally such loving creatures. 

(M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman by Pragya Agarwal 

This well-researched book tackles the othering of women through their bodies' fertility and reproductive capacities. It's a much-needed Indian memoir experience of motherhood combined with the work of a data and behavioural scientist (the author). It's a beautiful and interesting honest read.

Mother is a Verb: An unconventional history by Sarah Knott 

This book blends memoir and history, telling stories of women from Cree women in Hobbema, Alberta, tenant farmers in Appalachia, tenement dwellers in New York, San Francisco lesbians, and so much more. It's intense, it's a bit like scattershot storytelling and I could imagine how it would be overwhelming to some readers but I find it delicious and easy to get lost into. 

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience & Institution by Adrienne Rich 

Classic. Incomplete. Dated in places. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand motherhood as an institution. "To destroy the institution is not to abolish motherhood. It is to release the creation and sustenance of life into the same realm of decision, struggle, surprise, imagination, and conscious intelligence, as any other difficult, but freely chosen work."

On guilt, perfectionism, and how the self-sacrifice of mothers and aunts before us can lead us to not want to be mothers, or lead us to expect from ourselves a style of mothering that doesn't suit our culture, our identities, our resources on hand, or our goals. Features a Korean mom of one telling her story or not wanting to be a mom in the first place, then having a daughter, and then resenting the one style of mothering she feels pressured to perform. 

Host Ardenia talks about what is required for women to show up fully in the work place: Men need to show up at home. She has a quick list of how moms can become more politically involved to impact local politics and change the political state of motherhood. She addresses white suburban moms with a rallying call.

I thought this was a lovely conversation about priorities and how these specific priorities can let us go easy on ourselves. One of the hosts says that mothering is simple—not easy, but simple. Mid-way through the episode, they discuss the same design strategy Undoing Motherhood puts forward for how to prioritize our parenting responsibilities intentionally, letting the rest of the expectations go. 

Martha Beck is brilliant, always, and this episode can help moms sort out when to prioritize your own needs. She says that selfish people are just people whose selves are being starved of needs being met. When we meet our needs first, we will naturally then turn to others, wanting to give to them. She quotes a therapist who says that 75% of our energy should be self-occupied at all times unless we're alone.