Like the live readings, the anthologyListen to Your Motheris a brutally honest look at modern motherhood. It showcases the experiences of ordinary people of different races, genders, and ages, and takes readers on a journey through motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor.
Fiercely irreverent, thought-provoking, hilarious, and edgy - a spirited wake-up call about modern-day mothering
In 2010, Ann Imig decided Mother’s Day was lacking- instead of being solely a retail-driven holiday, the focus should be family. By bringing our community together to share personal stories about our mothers, we could get back to the core of why mothering is important. That year, she organized a live reading, and so ‘Listen to Your Mother’ was born. Now it’s a rapidly growing movement that’s sweeping the nation.
Like the live readings, the anthology Listen to Your Mother is a brutally honest look at modern motherhood. It showcases the experiences of ordinary people of different races, genders, and ages, and takes readers on a journey through motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor.
Acutely stimulating, and filled with pathos and candor, the contributors’ stories share their experiences with adoption, assimilation, and emptying nests; first-time motherhood, foster parenting, and infertility; LGBTQ parenting, special-needs parenting, and surrogacy; step-mothering, never mothering, and mothering through illness. Their essays are devastatingly funny, refreshingly edgy, and deeply thought-provoking; they are the collective voice of mothers among us. Whether you are one, have one, or know one, Listen to Your Mother is an emotional whirlwind that is guaranteed to entertain, amuse, and enlighten.
Praise for Listen to Your Mother
‘With their authentic glimpses into this hard, beautiful thing we call life, the essays between these covers led me to fresh perspectives on mothering and being mothered. I savored the open vulnerability that met me with each turn of the page. From the hilarious to the profound, and not bound by gender or geography, these stories generously plumbed the depths of all that is motherhood.’ Anna Whiston Donaldson, New York Times-bestselling author of Rare Bird
‘I’ve been a longtime fan of Ann’s Listen to Your Mother movement, and I just adore this collection. The stories are diverse, yet bound together by Listen to Your Mother’s trademark rawness and honesty. A perfect gift for any woman in your life … or yourself!'Jill Smokler, New York Times-bestselling author of Confessions of aScary Mommy
'Listen to Your Mother manages to do what few anthologies do- it makes us see ourselves clearly through the eyes of many different writers-all gifted and many wickedly funny. These writers voice the things that everyone thinks and no one says. Long live the mothers!’ Suzanne Finnamore, award-winning author of Split
