“If you've ever felt like you're the only one struggling with motherhood, this book is for you.” —Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play From a maternal mental health specialist comes an empowering guide to help reshape your internalized expectations and beliefs around motherhood. Every mom wants to be a good parent—but if you’ve found yourself burned out and overwhelmed trying to be “the perfect mom,” you’re not alone. “We get handed a rulebook of motherhood without realizing it,” says Erica Djossa. “That rulebook comes with an invisible load—a world of mental and physical tasks that keeps us pushing toward perfection while barely being able to breathe.” With Releasing the Mother Load, this renowned parenting specialist shares a guide to help you break free from the crushing burden of unrealistic expectations and reclaim the joy of motherhood while staying true to your own values. As a therapist and the founder of the Momwell community, Erica has learned how many mothers from all backgrounds and walks of life feel trapped by modern motherhood. Here she dispels the falsehoods our culture has built around what it means to be a mom and shares practical, proven guidance for a more empowered approach to parenting, including: • What is the Mother Load? Where our expectations come from and why they don’t serve us or our children • Making the Mother Load visible—the true emotional and physical cost of the many jobs, habits, and beliefs we carry • Sharing the load—tools to establish strong boundaries, express your needs, and build a support system • Practical techniques and scripts to help you create a healthy, balanced, and enriching approach to motherhood “You can chart your own journey in a way that is freeing, feels right to you, and reignites passions and dreams that you thought had died when you began to put everyone else’s needs first,” says Erica Djossa. Here is a life-changing guide for developing a new vision of motherhood that lets you parent more freely and with greater fulfillment—so you can finally release the Mother Load.

When it comes to libido, every one of us is different... But that’s no bad thing. Differences in libido is a common issue in romantic relationships, often leading to insecurity, conflict and communication breakdown. It can be difficult to find help, as most research on the topic adheres to a narrow, heteronormative model of sexual intimacy — a way of thinking that hinders our ability to enjoy sex to the full. Dr. Fogel Mersy and Dr. Vencill’s Desire rejects this model. Drawing upon their wealth of experience as certified sex therapists, Fogel Mersy and Vencill look beyond structural oppressions like cisnormativity and compulsory sexuality, to promote a liberated, inclusive perspective. Through scientific research, cultural analysis, and practical exercises, readers can learn what impacts libido, how to improve communication, and how to manage sexual anxieties, in order to create a healthier and happier attitude towards sex and intimacy. Whoever you are or whoever you're into, Desire will help you find the key to having great sex and making lasting relationships. Praise for Desire: 'Brilliant. . . . This is the most inclusive, up-to-date book on sexual desire I have ever encountered, with the potential to help countless individuals' Laurie Mintz, PhD, author of Becoming Cliterate 'Desire is the most important sexuality book of the last decade' Barry McCarthy, PhD, author of Couple Sexuality After 60 'An incredibly comprehensive, thoughtful, inclusive, and encouraging book for anyone looking to understand sexual desire or improve their relationship with their partner' Dr. Debby Herbenick, PhD, MPH, author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction

Why do men do so little at home? Why do women do so much? Why don't our egalitarian values match our lived experiences? Journalist-turned-psychologist Darcy Lockman offers a clear-eyed look at the most pernicious problem facing modern parents—how progressive relationships become traditional ones when children are introduced into the household. In an era of seemingly unprecedented feminist activism, enlightenment, and change, data shows that one area of gender inequality stubbornly persists: the disproportionate amount of parental work that falls to women, no matter their background, class, or professional status. All the Rage investigates the cause of this pervasive inequity to answer why, in households where both parents work full-time and agree that tasks should be equally shared, mothers’ household management, mental labor, and childcare contributions still outweigh fathers’. How, in a culture that pays lip service to women’s equality and lauds the benefits of father involvement—benefits that extend far beyond the well-being of the kids themselves—can a commitment to fairness in marriage melt away upon the arrival of children? Counting on male partners who will share the burden, women today have been left with what political scientists call unfulfilled, rising expectations. Historically these unmet expectations lie at the heart of revolutions, insurgencies, and civil unrest. If so many couples are living this way, and so many women are angered or just exhausted by it, why do we remain so stuck? Where is our revolution, our insurgency, our civil unrest? Darcy Lockman drills deep to find answers, exploring how the feminist promise of true domestic partnership almost never, in fact, comes to pass. Starting with her own marriage as a ground zero case study, she moves outward, chronicling the experiences of a diverse cross-section of women raising children with men; visiting new mothers’ groups and pioneering co-parenting specialists; and interviewing experts across academic fields, from gender studies professors and anthropologists to neuroscientists and primatologists. Lockman identifies three tenets that have upheld the cultural gender division of labor and peels back the ways in which both men and women unintentionally perpetuate old norms. If we can all agree that equal pay for equal work should be a given, can the same apply to unpaid work? Can justice finally come home?

(A Nose Is a Nose, Is a Nose) My doctor told me my nose had a deviated septum, which meant it was crooked inside and its outside was a perfect match. My nose was so crooked it looked as if I was always trying to smell something on my left cheek, so I kept that side of my face extra clean so people wouldnt get the wrong idea.

“An empowering book . . . strategies for freeing yourself from the control of an unhealthy mother relationship.” —Susan Forward PhD, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Toxic Parents For any adult daughter who struggles with a narcissistic, controlling, or otherwise difficult mother, here’s the good news: Your mother doesn't have to change in order for you to be happy. Inspired by her own journey, Karen C.L. Anderson shows women how to emotionally separate from their difficult mothers without guilt and anxiety, so they can finally create a life based on their own values, desires, needs, and preferences. With personal stories, practical tools, and journal prompts that can be used now to feel better. Anderson compassionately leads women struggling in their relationships with their difficult mothers through a process of self-awareness and understanding. Her experience with hundreds of women has resulted in cases of profound growth and transformation. This book is about Anderson discovering and accepting the whole of who she is (separate from her mother), and—in relatable, real, funny, and compassionate prose—making her discoveries accessible to women struggling to redefine their own challenging relationships with their mothers. Learn: · Why mothers and daughters can have difficult relationships · How to heal and transform your mother “wounds” · How to tell your stories in a way that empowers · How to handle the uncomfortable emotions that seem inevitable · The art of creating, articulating, and maintaining impeccable boundaries · How to stop “shouldering” How to “re-mother” yourself and acknowledge, honor, and meet your needs

Enter a world where Batman does the dishes and Barbie fights crime In the US and around the world, people are striving to close the gender gap. Ranked fifth globally for gender equality, Sweden is doing something right. But to truly close the gap, Swedish experts Kristina Henkel and Marie Tomicic know that we have to start at the beginning, with the daily gender traps and stumbling blocks that cause us to view our children one-dimensionally and limit their potential. In The Swedish Way to Parent and Play, Henkel and Tomicic share practical strategies and tips covering play and friendship, emotions and self-esteem, and language and body, to help parents and teachers support children’s development as unique individuals. The point is not that boys should wear dresses and girls can’t play with dolls, or that all children should be the same. Gender equality is about variety; it’s about showing children 100 possible ways to be instead of just two.