Full of research-based tips and real-world wisdom, this book is a guide for mothers on how to thrive as they transition to their empty nest years. Thirty million mothers between 40 and 60 years old are about to face childless households for the first time in decades. For some women, it is a lonely and confusing time; but for the vast majority, it's a journey of joy and discovery. Through intensive and wide-ranging original research, author Carin Rubenstein reveals how and why some mothers thrive and others do not. She breaks the post-motherhood launch down into three stages--grief, relief, and joy. If a woman makes it through to the final stage, friendships blossom, work thrives, and she develops a renewed sense of confidence and well-being. While in many instances, increased time together hastens the end of a struggling marriage, most women discover their relationships improve when children leave. Beyond the Mommy Years offers fascinating research, helpful advice, and amusing anecdotes to the millions facing this uncertain but potentially enriching stage of life. "An encouraging counterarguement to the idea that an empty nest leads to an empty life." -- Library Journal "Carin Rubenstein, PhD., nails it: Any woman worried about her post-car pool life should read this book." -- Sally Koslow, mother of two sons in their twenties, and author of Little Pink Slips "Beyond the Mommy Years bridges the knowledge void felt by so many moms after their children leave for college...A thoughtful discussion of the positive changes that lie ahead for mothers after our children are launched. While parenting never ends, this book provides moms with the tools to live a rich and full life." -- Linda Perlman Gordon & Susan Morris Shaffer, co-authors of Mom, Can I Move Back in with You?

Born out of her popular website Beyond Mom, Randi’s book is a guide for mothers looking to jump-start their business ideas by finding connection from within. The 1.2 million women in America each year who choose not to return to traditional work after having children have found themselves filled with an unexpected creative energy, but lack the knowledge and network to tap it. With the support of the Beyond Mom community behind you, Randi provides the guidance and the tools women need to find their strength, body, and mind, thus laying the integral foundation to bring entrepreneurial ideas to fruition. Her distinct approach is as practically accessible as it is holistic—a former yoga teacher who also possesses a decade of experience as an acting CEO, she knows that personal well-being is critically connected to any thriving business venture. Because the first step to personal wellness and idea growth begins with you. In addition, each chapter features an interview from the Beyond Mom network of celebrity moms, successful businesswomen, and clients, like bestselling author and coach Alexandra Jamieson, renowned psychotherapist Terri Cole, IntenSati founder Patricia Moreno, and author/anthropologist Wednesday Martin, just to name a few. Honest, smart, and relatable, Randi provides wisdom and encouragement to build entrepreneurs (who are also moms) from deep within!

With motherhood comes one of the toughest decisions of a woman’s life: Stay at home or pursue a career? The dilemma not only divides mothers into hostile, defensive camps but pits individual mothers against themselves. Leslie Morgan Steiner has been there. As an executive at The Washington Post, a writer, and mother of three, she has lived and breathed every side of the “mommy wars.” Rather than just watch the battles rage, Steiner decided to do something about it. She commissioned twenty-six outspoken mothers to write about their lives, their families, and the choices that have worked for them. The result is a frank, surprising, and utterly refreshing look at American motherhood. Ranging in age from twenty-five to seventy-two and scattered across the country from New Hampshire to California, these mothers reflect the full spectrum of lifestyle choices. Women who have been home with the kids from day one, moms who shuttle from full-time office jobs to part-time at-home work, hard-driving executives who put in seventy-hour-plus weeks: they all get a turn. The one thing these women have in common, aside from having kids, is that they’re all terrific writers. Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley vividly recounts how her generation stormed the American workplace–only to take refuge at home when the workplace drove them out. Lizzie McGuire creator Terri Minsky describes what it felt like to hear her kids scream “I hope you never come back!” when she flew to L.A. to launch the show that made her career. Susan Cheever, novelist, biographer, and Newsday columnist, reports on the furious battles between the stroller pushers and the briefcase bearers on the streets of Manhattan. Lois R. Shea traded the journalistic fast track for a house in the country where she could raise her daughter in peace. Ann Misiaszek Sarnoff, chief operating officer of the Women’s National Basketball Association, argues fiercely that you can combine ambition and motherhood–and have a blast in the process. Candid, engaging, by turns unflinchingly honest and painfully funny, the essays collected here offer an astonishingly intimate portrait of the state of motherhood today. Mommy Wars is a book by and for and about the real experts on motherhood and hard work: the women at home, in the office, on the job every day of their lives. Including these essays: “Neither Here nor There” by Sandy Hingston “The Mother Load” by Terri Minsky “Sharks and Jets” by Page Evans “Baby Battle” by Susan Cheever “Guilty” by Dawn Drzal “The Donna Reed Syndrome” by Lonnae O’Neal Parker “Mother Superior” by Catherine Clifford “Good Enough” by Beth Brophy “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn” by Lois R. Shea “What Goes Unsaid” by Sydney Trent “I Hate Everybody” by Leslie Lehr “Before; After” by Molly Jong-Fast “I Do Know How She Does It” by Ann Misiaszek Sarnoff “Red Boots and Cole Haans” by Monica Buckley Price “Working Mother, Not Guilty” by Sara Nelson “Feminism Meets the Free Market” by Jane Smiley “Happy” by Anne Marie Feld “I Never Dreamed I’d Have So Many Children” by Lila Leff “On Being a Radical Feminist Stay-at-Home Mom” by Inda Schaenen “Being There” by Reshma Memon Yaqub “Russian Dolls” by Veronica Chambers “Peace and Carrots” by Carolyn Hax “Unprotected” by Natalie Smith Parra “Julia” by Anna Fels “On Balance” by Jane Juska “My Baby’s Feet Are Size 13” by Iris Krasnow

“Sadly, Christina’s journey, and her children’s experience of being collateral damage, is not atypical. Kudos for her strength and bravery in putting her story out there as a cautionary tale for others.” (Dr. Susan Weitzman, author, Not to People like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages). “Christina Mask’s Nightmare is constructed around fragments from a life in agony as one woman attempts to escape abuse, retain her sanity, and regain the custody of three children the family court and her husband have taken from her. It’s all here—the daily records over months, then years; the diary entries; the self-blame; the excuses; the shame; the absurdist dialogues with family therapists; marginalia from readings or lectures or religious texts; letters pleadings with judges and lawyers and evaluators; poems; letters to and from the children, real and imagined; the reports that put her claims of abuse in quotations; and so, so much more. These pieces are loosely joined by a narrative and an interior monologue that I sometimes found too much to bear. But then I realized I was scanning something akin to a Picasso painting, whose underlying truth lay not in what was on the page, not the fragments, but in the hope that put them out here, no more evident than in the endlessly reasonable letters Mask writes to intractable foes. Mask has cast her eye on what Yeats termed ‘the broken, crumbling battlement’ of the self and lived to write it. As one director famously said about the sixty women and children crowded into her six-bedroom shelter, ‘If they can manage this, they can manage anything.’ Christina’s book gives us faith that she is right.” (Evan Stark, PhD, MSW. The writer is professor emeritus at Rutgers University, and author of Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life [Oxford, 2007]).

I am a first-time publisher who is determined to give a reassuring child's voice to the current phenomenon of changing gender roles in the modern household. Most people are aware that women all over the world have become, more often than not, the breadwinners in many households. As a mother of 3 who has recently gone through a divorce, I see women my age and younger struggle with this situation on a daily basis. Not only do they deal with the professional and social pressures of their changing socio-economic roles, they have to deal with their spouse or significant other's, as well as family members', reactions to them working outside of the home. Finally and most importantly, they have to deal with the overwhelming guilt of being a successful woman while raising their children. They are constantly trying to prove to themselves and to others that they are worthy, capable, loving mothers. After years of observation and participation in this scenario, I've noticed that women often torture themselves unnecessarily. My book provides a child's perspective and helps ease some of the pressure of "mommy guilt" that we put on ourselves and other moms.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.

The magazine that helps career moms balance their personal and professional lives.