Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become

I've read many books on the loss of a parent (particularly a mother) and none of them touched me like "Motherless Mothers" did. The author clearly knows what she is writing about, and puts in a great deal of personal experiences, but complements this with results from a survey among 1300+ women (if I'm not mistaken) and researched many secondary sources. The result is a book that helps women who lost their mother (at different ages, for different reasons) to understand what they feel, realise that it's normal and okay to have those feelings and makes them understand why they parent like they do. It's an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

For those of you who know Hope Edelman's books, you already know how amazing she is, and you probably already own MOTHERLESS MOTHERS. For those of you who don't, buy this book. Hope puts mothering into perspective whether you're a motherless mother or not. She's intelligent, insightful and incredibly honest. Using stories from her own life and research based on interviews she's done with other mothers, she leads the reader through what it's like to navigate the ups and downs of parenting without a "mother" role model. She's one of the smartest writers I've read.

...if she could. Edelman's book should be required reading for any motherless mother. Her insights are startling. This book heals.

Hope Edelman has a gift for writing the exact words I've been thinking since my Mother died of Breast Cancer at age 47, when I was 17. Mz. Edelman brings out all your emotions, one page after another. Hubby just shakes his head whenever I become engrosed in her book... He does not understand the Mother/Daughter bond... Hope helps me to understand and relive the love and joy of that now-missing bond!!!!

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.