1. Karen Kleiman, The Postpartum Husband: Practical Solutions for Living with Postpartum Depression (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2000), 40.
1. Joyce Venis and Suzanne McCloskey, Postpartum Depression Demystified (New York: Avalon Publishing Group, 2007).
2. J. Guintivano, M. Arad, T.D. Gould, J.L. Payne, and Z.A. Kaminsky, “Antenatal Prediction of Postpartum Depression with Blood DNA Methylation Biomarkers,” Molecular Psychiatry 19 (2014): 560–67.
3. Oscar Serrallach, The Postnatal Depletion Cure (New York: Hachette, 2018), 36.
4. Alex Korb and Daniel Siegel, The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reserve Depression, One Small Change at a Time (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2015), 15.
5. Korb and Siegel.
6. Scott Anderson, John Cryan, and Ted Dinan, The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection (Washington, DC: National Geographic Partners, 2017).
7. Karen Kleiman and Amy Wenzel, Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts (New York: Routledge, 2011), 45–50.
8. Korb and Siegel, The Upward Spiral, 185.
9. Linda Clark Amankwaa, “Maternal Postpartum Role Collapse as a Theory of Postpartum Depression,” The Qualitative Report 10, no. 1 (2015): 21–38.
10. Amankwaa.
11. Amankwaa.
12. Amankwaa.
13. Amankwaa.
14. Amankwaa.
15. Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
16. Linda Rose Ennis, “Intensive Mothering: Revisiting the Issues Today,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 5.
17. Madeline Walker, “Intensive Mothering, Elimination Communication and the Call to Eden,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 223.
18. Charlotte Faircloth, “Is Attachment Parenting Intensive Mothering?,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, 2014).
19. I. Bretherton and K.A. Munholland, “Internal Working Models in Attachment Relationships: A Construct Revisited,” in Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications, edited by J. Cassidy and P. R. Shaver (New York: Guilford Press, 1999), 89–111.
20. Bretherton and Munholland.
21. Bretherton and Munholland.
22. Bretherton and Munholland.
23. “What is Attachment Parenting?” Attachment Parenting Canada, last modified 2008, attachmentparenting.ca/about.html.
24. Diana Divecha, “Why Attachment Parenting is Not the Same as Secure Attachment,” Greater Good magazine, May 2, 2018, greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_attachment_parenting _is_not_the_same_as_secure_attachment.
25. “What is Attachment Parenting?”
26. Faircloth, “Is Attachment Parenting Intensive Mothering?,” 181.
27. Faircloth, 187.
28. Walker, “Intensive Mothering, Elimination Communication,” 233.
29. Hays, Cultural Contradictions.
30. Tatjana Takseva, “How Contemporary Consumerism Shapes Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 222.
31. J. Lauren Johnson, “The Best I Can: Hope for Single Parents in the Age of Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 270.
32. Judith Rich Harris, The Nature Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (New York: Touchstone, 1998).
33. Johnson, 272.
34. Johnson, 274.
35. Johnson, 274.
36. Johnson, 273.
37. Johnson, 272.
38. Faith Galliano Desai, “Transpersonal Motherhood: A Practical Holistic Model of Motherhood,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 327.
1. Kim Huisman and Elizabeth Joy, “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood Revisited: Continuities and Changes,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 97.
2. Melissa A. Milkie and Catharine H. Warner, “Status Safeguarding: Mothers’ Work to Secure Children’s Place in the Social Hierarchy,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 68.
3. Milkie and Warner, 69, 75–76.
4. Lisa M. Mitchell, “Better Babies, Better Mothers: Baby Sign Language and Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 196, 206.
5. Mitchell, 199.
6. Linda Rose Ennis, “Intensive Mothering: Revisiting the Issues Today,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 334.
7. Solveig Brown, “Intensive Mothering as an Adaptive Response to Our Cultural Environment,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 32.
8. Brown.
9. Tatjana Takseva, “How Contemporary Consumerism Shapes Intensive Mothering Practices,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 219.
10. Takseva, 220–21.
11. Brown, “Intensive Mothering as an Adaptive Response,” 33.
12. Madeline Walker, “Intensive Mothering, Elimination Communication and the Call to Eden,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 236.
13. Takseva, “Contemporary Consumerism,” 223–27.
14. Helena Vissing, “The Ideal Mother Fantasy and Its Protective Function,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 108.
15. Vissing, 108.
16. Kristen Abati McHenry and Denise Schultz, “Skinny Jeans: Perfection and Competition in Motherhood,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 302.
17. Vissing, “The Ideal Mother Fantasy,” 107.
18. Vissing, 107.
19. Vissing, 114.
20. Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, The Mommy Myth (New York: Free Press, 2004), 6.
21. Jennifer Senior, All Joy and No Fun (New York: HarperCollins, 2014).
22. Lorin Basden Arnold, “I Don’t Know Where You End and I Begin: Challenging Boundaries of the Self and Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 53.
23. Amankwaa, “Maternal Postpartum Role Collapse.”
24. Simone Vigod, Lori Ross, and Stephanie George, “Promoting Wellness. Extending Our Reach” (lecture, Perinatal Mental Health Conference, Burlington, ON, October 24, 2019).
25. Sondra Medina and Sandy Magnuson, “Motherhood in the 21st Century: Implications for Counselors,” Journal of Counselling and Development 87 (2009): 90–96.
26. Medina and Magnuson.
27. J. Lauren Johnson, “The Best I Can: Hope for Single Parents in the Age of Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 268.
28. Christi L. Gross, Brianna Turgeon, Tiffany Taylor, and Kasey Lansberry, “State Intervention and Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 170.
29. Llesenia Anguiano, “A Psychoeducational Support Group for Latinas with Postpartum Depression Raising Children Within the Welfare System” (unpublished grant proposal, California State University, Long Beach, 2011), pqdtopen.proquest.com/pubnum/1499230.html.
30. Melinda Vandenbeld Giles, “From ‘Need’ to ‘Risk’: The Neoliberal Construction of the ‘Bad’ Mothers,” Journal of Association for Research on Mothering 31, no. 1 (2012): 112–33.
31. Johnson, “The Best I Can,” 268.
1. L. Hadfield, N. Rudoe, and J. Sanderson-Mann, “Motherhood, Choice and the British Media: A Time to Reflect,” Gender and Education 19, no. 2 (2007): 255–63.
2. Laura Carroll, The Baby Making Matrix (London: Live True Books, 2012).
3. Carroll.
4. I use brackets around “dis” to highlight that what it means to have an ability or disability is impacted by the social model of disability.
5. Allison McDonald Ace, Ariel Ng Bourbonnais, and Caroline Starr, eds., Through, Not Around: Stories of Infertility and Pregnancy Loss (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2019).
6. Michael Lista, “A Doctor’s Deception,” Toronto Life, July 24, 2019, torontolife.com/city/greed-betrayal-medical-misconduct-north-york-general.
7. Lista.
8. WHO Recommendations: Intrapartum Care for a Positive Childbirth Experience (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2018), 1, who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/intrapartum-care-guidelines/en.
9. Rebecca Dekker, “The Evidence on: Erythromycin Eye Ointment for Newborns,” Evidence Based Birth, November 12, 2012, last modified August 3, 2017, evidencebasedbirth.com/is-erythromycin-eye-ointment-always-necessary-for-newborns.
10. Dekker.
11. Ashley Ashbacher, “Women’s Experiences of Birth Trauma and Postpartum Mental Health” (Social Work masters clinical research paper, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN, 2013), 2.
12. Ashbacher.
1. David Richter, Michael D. Krame, Nicole K.Y. Tang, Hawley E. Montgomery-Downsand, and Sakari Lemola, “Long Term Effects of Pregnancy and Childbirth on Sleep Satisfaction and Duration of First-Time and Experienced Mothers and Fathers,” Sleep Research Society 42, no. 4 (2019): 1–10.
2. Ann Douglas, Happy Parents, Happy Kids (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2019), 175–76.
3. Douglas, 175.
4. Alexandra Sacks and Catherine Birndorf, What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 230–31.
5. Verinder Sharma and Dwight Mazmanian, “Sleep Loss and Postpartum Psychosis,” Bipolar Disorders 5, no. 2 (2003): 95–105.
6. T.B. Strouse, M.P. Szuba, and L.R. Baxter, “Response to Sleep Deprivation in Three Women with Postpartum Psychosis,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 53, no. 6 (1992): 204–6.
7. Emily Oster, Cribsheet (New York: Penguin Press, 2019), 181.
8. Oster, 181.
1. Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung, The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home (New York: Penguin Group, 2012).
2. Javier Cerrato and Eva Cifre, “Gender Inequality in Household Chores and Work-Family Conflict,” Frontiers in Psychology 9, no. 1330 (2018): 7.
3. Kelly Sullivan, “Sleep Duration and Feeling Rested are Differently Associated with Having Children Among Men and Women,” American Academy of Neurology 88 (2017).
4. Sullivan.
5. J. Lauren Johnson, “The Best I Can: Hope for Single Parents in the Age of Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 269.
6. Johnson.
7. Ellen Cole, Esther D. Rothburn, and Janet M. Wright, Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography of Love (New York: Routledge, 1998).
8. Emily Oster, Cribsheet (New York: Penguin Press, 2019), 277.
9. Glenda Corwin, Sexual Intimacy for Women: A Guide for Same-Sex Couples (Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2010).
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Weight Gain During Pregnancy,” last modified January 17, 2019, cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-weight-gain.htm.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “More Than 3 Million US Women At Risk For Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancy,” last modified February 2, 2016, cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0202-alcohol-exposed-pregnancy.html.
3. Judith J. Wurtman and Nina Frusztajer Marquis, The Serotonin Power Diet (New York: Rodale, 2006).
4. Emily Oster, Cribsheet (New York: Penguin Press, 2019), 68.
5. Oster, 68.
6. Kristen Thompson, “Yes, Breast IS Best, But It’s Time to Retire That Phrase Once and For All,” last modified January 23, 2019, todaysparent.com/baby/breastfeeding/yes-breast-is-best-butits-time-to-retire-that-phrase-once-and-for-all.
7. Linda Gionet, “Breastfeeding Trends in Canada,” Statistics Canada, last modified November 27, 2015, 150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2013001/article/11879-eng.htm.
8. Linda Gionet.
9. Oster, Cribsheet, 69.
10. Country Jung, Lactivism (Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2005).
11. Oster, Cribsheet, 6.
12. Oster, 6.
13. Oster, 70.
14. Oster, 86.
1. Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski, Burnout (New York: Ballantine Books, 2019), 81.
1. Stephanie Knaak, “Having a Tough Time: Towards an Understanding of the Psycho-Social Causes of Postpartum Emotional Distress,” Journal of the Association for the Research on Mothering 11, no. 1 (2009): 80–94.
2. Knaak.
3. Rena Bina, “The Impact of Cultural Factors on Postpartum Depression: A Literature Review,” Health Care for Women International 29 (2008): 568–92.
4. Bina.
5. Michael Lambert and Dean Barley, “Research Summary on the Therapeutic Relationship and Psychotherapy Outcome,” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 38, no. 4 (2001): 357–61.
1. Melissa Milkie and Catharine Warner, “Mothers’ Work to Secure Children’s Place in the Social Hierarchy,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 68.
2. Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us about the Relationship between Parents and Children (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2016).
3. Ann Douglas, Happy Parents, Happy Kids (Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2019), 77–78.
4. Alexandra Sacks, “A New Way to Think About the Transition to Motherhood,” filmed May 2018, TED video, 5:47, ted.com/talks/alexandra_sacks_a_new_way_to_think_about_the _transition_to_motherhood?language=en.
5. Alexandra Sacks and Catherine Birndorf, What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 197.
6. Sacks and Birndorf, 197.
7. I created this exercise drawing from Internal Family Systems and Gestalt modalities, as well as the parts model from the Coaches Training Institute.
1. Solveig Brown, “Intensive Mothering as an Adaptive Response to our Cultural Environment,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 38.
2. Lorin Basden Arnold, “I Don’t Know Where You End and I Begin: Challenging Boundaries of the Self and Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 56.
3. Virginia H. Mackintosh, Miriam Liss, and Holly H. Schiffrin, “Using A Quantitative Measure to Explore Intensive Mothering Ideology,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 152.
4. Basden Arnold, “I Don’t Know Where You End and I Begin,” 57.
5. Helena Vissing, “The Ideal Mother Fantasy and Its Protective Function,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 117.
6. Vissing.
7. Vissing, 105.
8. Vissing.
9. I adapted this tool from the Coaches Training Institute’s personal values exploration exercise.
10. J Li, “The Decide 10 Rating System,” Medium, November 25, 2017, medium.com/prototypethinking/the-should-we-do-this-rating-system-3aac062b1b91.
11. D.W. Winnicott, Winnicott on the Child (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002), 51.
12. Winnicott, 179.
13. Alexandra Sacks and Catherine Birndorf, What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 196.
14. Sacks and Birndorf, 197.
15. Winnicott, On the Child, 51.
16. Deb Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy (New York: WW Norton and Company, 2018), 124.
17. Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski, Burnout (New York: Ballantine Books, 2019), 4–5.
18. Nagoski and Nagoski, 7.
19. Nagoski and Nagoski, 6.
20. Nagoski and Nagoski, 15–16.
1. Ann Douglas, Happy Parents, Happy Kids (Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2019), 33, 36, 45.
2. Kelly Diels, “The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand. An Introduction,” January 4, 2016, kellydiels.com/female-lifestyle-empowerment-brand-introduction.
3. Vladimir Poznyak and Dag Rekve, eds., Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2018), who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_ report/gsr_2018/en.
4. Here I’m referring to recreational use or use with the intention to reduce stress. This does not include parents who struggle with alcohol addiction or cannot stop drinking when they want to.
5. Brené Brown, Rising Strong (New York: Random House, 2015).
6. This is a tip I learned from the Reproductive Life Stages Program at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.
7. Lorin Basden Arnold, “I Don’t Know Where You End and I Begin: Challenging Boundaries of the Self and Intensive Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 56.
8. Virginia H. Mackintosh, Miriam Liss, and Holly H. Schiffrin, “Using A Quantitative Measure to Explore Intensive Mothering Ideology,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 145.
9. Linda Ross Ennis, “Balancing Separation-Connection in Mothering,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 332.
10. This concept isn’t one I made up myself! I learned it from a supervisor during my masters of social work placement and want to give due credit.
11. Faith Galliano Desai, “Transpersonal Motherhood: A Practical and Holistic Model of Motherhood,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 315.
12. Internal Family Systems therapy is an excellent way to do this kind of complex work.
13. Maya-Merida Paltineau, “From Intensive Mothering to Identity Parenting,” in Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Rose Ennis (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014), 132.
14. Galliano Desai, “Transpersonal Motherhood,” 316.
1. Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).
2. To find free online perinatal support groups, check out postpartum.net.
3. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly (New York: Averly Press, 2012).
4. Tom Rath, Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without (New York: Gallup Press, 2006).