Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become [Hardcover]

Hope Edelman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2006

When Hope Edelman published Motherless Daughters about the long-term effects of early mother loss, the book touched a nerve in women across the country, and went on to become an enduring New York Times bestseller. Edelman, who was seventeen when her own mother died, told the collective story of mother loss with such candor, empathy, and informed wisdom that she quickly became a widely recognized expert on the topic.

But when she became a parent, she found herself revisiting her loss in ways she had never anticipated. Now the mother of two young girls, Edelman set out to learn how the loss of a mother to death or abandonment affects the ways women raise their own children. From her exhaustive investigation comes Motherless Mothers, the enlightening and inspiring next step in the motherless journey.

Using her own story as a prism, Edelman reveals the unique anxieties and desires these mothers experience as they raise their children without the help of a living maternal guide. She examines their parenting choices, their unexpected triumphs, and their fears, illuminating how the experience of loss directly impacts the ways in which these women parent their own children. This impeccably researched and luminously written book offers motherless mothers the guidance and support they want and need.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Edelman first undertook this painful topic in 1994 (Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss), drawing from her own experience of losing her mother at 17. Now a mother herself, she considers how her mother's absence has shaped her seven years of parenting. Through interviews, anecdotes and psychological research, Edelman discusses the challenge of mothering in the shadow of someone gone, which often triggers a resurgence of childhood grief and confusion. But this is less a book on mourning than a supportive guide for mothers who may feel overwhelmed and alone, bereft of their own mothers' presence, advice and support. Chapters address general child-rearing topics for each age group with focuses specific to the reader: the void of the absent grandmother, the urge to overcompensate and the perpetual impulse to protect one's family from the specter of loss. Bereavement counselors examine the process of revisiting a traumatic youth through one's children, which affords the opportunity to heal. Edelman's voice, suffused with fierce maternal love, joins the candid recollections from motherless mothers of all ages and backgrounds. She presents emotionally charged concepts in clear, memorable terms (e.g., reaching the "neon number" of a mother's age of death) to encourage frank, cathartic discussion. (May)
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Review

“A wonderful new book...it will help you and make you cry.” (Jacquelyn Mitchard, Tribune Media Services )

“An important book. One that will help so many people.” (New York Newsday )

“A heartfelt and practical work.” (Los Angeles Times )

“Offers hope...a cathartic book.” (Toledo Blade )

“Smart...Edelman maps the sorrow and longing felt by mothers who are motherless themselves. “ (The Oregonian )

Fascinating...Edelman illuminates the transformative power of understanding mother loss [and] offers essential wisdom. (Library Journal )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (April 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060532459
• ISBN-13: 978-0060532451
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #468,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hope Edelman is the internationally acclaimed author of five nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers, as well as the recent memoir The Possibility of Everything. She has lectured extensively on the subjects of early mother loss and nonfiction writing in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Glamour, Child, Seventeen, Real Simple, Parents, Writer's Digest, and Self, and her original essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Bitch in the House, Blindsided by a Diaper, and Behind the Bedroom Door. Her work has received a New York Times notable book of the year designation and a Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. She can be found in Iowa City every July teaching at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. The rest of the year, she lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband and their two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peeling Back Yet Another Piece, November 18, 2006

By 

Lisa Pozzi "Mama, Wife, Biz Owner" (Carlsbad, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become (Hardcover)

This is such a sensitive, individual subject. For me, losing my mother at a young age is one of the strongest factors that has shaped my life...it influenced me at such an impressionable age, that unraveling that event is a process that will forever be with me.

This book helps me understand some of the common themes that happen to motherless women when they become mothers. You think you've "grown up" without a mother, that you can handle it, you've survived your graduations, travels, weddings without her, so you think you can manage. Then BAMB, you get pregnant, and it releases this whole other world of questions, things you haven't thought of before....how did she give birth? was she sick during pregnancy? how did she handle those first few weeks? who was there to support her? what would she say to me if she were here now? how would she help me? You ask sisters, aunts, relatives about your mom during her childbearing years, trying to piece together the information, but ultimately you don't know, you can't know what her mothering life was like.

Edelman talks about self-sufficiency, that when a child loses her (or his, probably) mother she becomes dependent on only herself. There's a tendency to combat any surrogate mother, and that reoccurs when we give birth. Usually the grandmother would be there to hand down mothering wisdom.

This book is for a select audience, and even then I think it can be read only when a woman is ready, willing to address and unravel some of her own loss.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Book by Hope Edelman, May 3, 2006

By 

Jennifer L. See "writergirl" (Harker Heights, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become (Hardcover)

Any mother that is trying to navigate the world of parenting without her own mother there to guide her needs to read this book!! I love Edelman's writing style - plain, frank and to the point. Many times reading this book I felt like she was talking right to me....she has captured the profound loss all of us motherless mothers feel. She has a nice balance of writing about her own loss and feelings, along with the experiences of other motherless mothers around the country, with just enough research and statistics thrown in to not be boring. This is a compelling, sometimes heart-wrenching read, but any motherless mother will take comfort while reading this book in knowing that they are not alone. Thank you, Hope, for writing this book for us!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A support group without the actual group, July 7, 2008

By 

Tori Bachman (Wilmington, DE, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become (Hardcover)

I read Motherless Daughters shortly after losing my mom to cancer when I was 21. At the time, my sister was 10, and I was profoundly daunted by the responsibility of being both sister and mother to her, but also I was afraid that losing her mom so young would destroy her. That book helped me to see that we would both be ok, that we would always hurt, but the hurt might even make us stronger...which I think it has.

Fast forward 10 years to the birth of my son, which catapulted me into a whole other realm of joy, anxiety, AND grief: Joy, obviously, at this new wonder in my world; anxiety over whether I was prepared without a mom-model; grief that I would never see my own mom hold her grandson. I felt the absence of my mother in a deeper way than I ever had before. I had no one to ask "is this how I was when I was a baby?" and no one to call in the middle of the night to ask about fever or to laugh with about the diaper explosion. And I am always heartbroken that he will never know his grandmother.

Motherless Mothers helped me in the same was as Motherless Daughters, by showing me that my feelings were not unusual, and that many other women have become strong, successful mothers without having their own mothers to lean on. I like, too, that the book focuses a little bit more on parenting than on grieving. There is some good information about why I react as I do, which has been helpful in preparing me for some of the challenges as well as some of the unexpected joys. It gave me a little support group without the actual group, and I'm grateful for Hope Edelman's work.