CONTENTS

                 FOREWORD BY CHRISTY TURLINGTON BURNS

                 INTRODUCTION

PART I      MAMA, DON’T FAIL ME NOW . . .

                 Ichabod’s Ghost / ABBY SHER

                 My Little Early Perfect / STEPHANIE KALOI

                 The Unapologetic No / SORAYA CHEMALY

                 Parenting Without a Rope / HEATHER HEWETT

                 Mama Don’t Cook / CARLA NAUMBURG

                 The Hallowed Life of an Agnostic Mother / VICTORIA BROOKE RODRIGUES

                 When Our Hearts Walk Outside of Our Bodies / JESSICA VALENTI

                 Yes, I Am That Selfish / AVITAL NORMAN NATHMAN

PART II     IN THE MAMA TRENCHES

                 The Good Enough Mother / NERISSA NIELDS

                 Another Way to End the Evening / ANDIE FOX

                 Climbers / DEBORAH SIEGEL

                 Is This Motherhood or Middle School? / NAOMI SHULMAN

                 There’s a Zombie Cavewoman in All of Us / AMBER DUSICK

                 No More Fakebook / SARAH EMILY TUTTLE-SINGER

                 Oh Father, Where Art Thou? / LISA DUGGAN

PART III    INSIDE MAMA’S MIND

                 An Existential Crisis is Born / ALY WINDSOR

                 Through Distortion / ARWYN DAEMYIR

                 Down the Rabbit Hole / ANNE-MARIE LINDSEY

                 Failure to Launch / KIMBERLY MORAND

                 The Peculiar Curse of Mentally Ill Motherhood / SHANNON DRURY

PART IV   MAMA BY ANY OTHER NAME

                 The Invisible Mother / SHAY STEWART-BOULEY

                 The Adoption Aisle / SARAH WERTHAN BUTTENWIESER

                 Confessions of a Born-Bad Mother / JOY LADIN

                 The Impossibility of the Good Black Mother / T. F. CHARLTON

                 Not Your Average Teen Mother / ELIZABETH CROSSEN

                 All the Single Ladies / JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER

                 The Way It’s Supposed to Be / KRISTEN OGANOWSKI

PART V     “NO GOOD” MAMA

                 Joint Parenting / PAULINE ABRAHAM

                 The End of Cute / SHARON LERNER

                 The Macaroni and Cheese Dilemma / LIZ HENRY

                 Making Time for Lust / ERIKA LUST

                 To Be Real / CANDACE WALSH

                 Lucky American Girl / K. J. DELL’ANTONIA

                 My Online Life as a (Not So) Lesbian Mama / CHRISTINA SOLETTI

                 When Good Mothers Come From Bad Ones / GINA CROSLEY-CORCORAN

                 Give Me My ‘A’ In Scarlet / TARA JEAN BERNIER