Wild Moms: Motherhood in the Animal Kingdom

by Carin Bondar Ph. D.

Being a mom is a tough job—but imagine doing it in the jungle or out on the safari, faced by the ravages of the elements, a scarcity of resources, and the threat of predators prowling at all times of the day and night. In Wild Moms, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the phenomenon of motherhood in the wild.


A journey through motherhood for the animal kingdom—from the initial phases of gestation and pregnancy through breastfeeding and toddler-rearing and trying to parent a teenager through empty nest syndrome (which, in many of these cases, is quite literal!) to being a grandmother. In Wild Moms, Dr. Bondar answers a whole host of questions about the animal kingdom: How do moms in the animal kingdom cope with crying babies and potty training? How does breastfeeding work in the wild—particularly when a mother is nursing not one baby at a time, but a whole litter?


Accessible and entertaining, Wild Moms is a celebration of moms everywhere—and a book guaranteed to make readers think about motherhood in an entirely new way.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Animals, Nature, Parenting

288 pages, Paperback

Published October 8, 2019

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this book because I thought it would be a good encompassing book of different animal mom’s and I was right. I appreciated learning about so many different animal motherhoods and her writing was full of research. I’m an animal lover but even I learned more about common animals that I thought I already had a good foundation on. The facts were fascinating but I give it four stars because sometimes it felt more like I was reading a fact sheet of bullet points than reading a fluid book. Definitely a keeper though with all its knowledge and insight it contains on the animal world and motherhood.

Recommend for:
18+
Animal lovers
Mothers
Biology
Behavioral biology
Psychology

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a book that I felt was going to be an interesting read since it combines two topic interests that I am right now interested in. And as I read the book I was promised that it was going to be so much more than what I expected. Result: straight failure.

The book most definitely started off strong in the beginning. The introduction strongly emphasized that maternity and passing on one's genes is diverse not only in the species that surround us but also within our own species. This will become the uncontested theme for the book mostly.

From there the book strongly started off by exploring within the first five chapters different ways that mothers have come to be mothers. This was probably the most fascinating part for me while in some ways I wish there had been more of the promised story examples included and other information provided to the reader. Unfortunately after these summary mentions in their dedicated chapters all other non-mammalian mothers would slowly pass away into the read pages without another look into their interesting contributions.

Although I understand the significance of mammalian mothers, the rest of the book seemed to be dedicated to them only in its exploration of motherhood. And this is where I felt the book took a turn downwards as the book shifted away from all mothers to a handful of mothers - predominantly primate and human mothers.

At the same time the majority of chapters didn't include the suggested sample stories as promised and the later chapters really seemed too lengthy for their own good. Much of this lengthiness was basically repetitive text whether it came from a previous chapter or a few paragraphs just read. As such the book most definitely needs more cleaning up in this part.

At the same time once the book started to focus on mammalian mothers and the processes that occur to their bodies it became really more scientific than it started off as and full of hypotheses. As a result there were a lot of scientific terms and tone, which will most definitely throw off readers who were looking for a much warmer motherly read.

There was also a few colored photographs thrown in with some captions. The latter could have been left off in my opinion since they didn't contribute to any more information in the book while it feels as if they were just included so the author could include her own family photos at the end of them.

All in all for those who want to get to know the more scientific understanding of mammalian motherhood this may be a bit of a challenging but somewhat interesting read. But for anyone who wants the warm fuzzies, the cute stories and a nice clean read of maternity this isn't going to be the book for you.

[Meaghan Recollet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned alot from this book, but was shocked at what human pregnancy was reduced to at a couple instances. Again, I understand it's about the animal kingdom, but it was pretty sad nonetheless.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even motherhood in the animal kingdom is kind of brutish, although there are some bright spots (anthropomorphically speaking). It's not all cuddles, but the variety of ways that have evolved to reproduce is quite amazing.

[Rossdavidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

In one way, this book reminded me of "The Gardener and the Carpenter", by Alison Gopnik, in that it's a book about motherhood by a professional researcher in a technical field related to the topic, who also has been a mother and thus can recognize where theory might not survive contact with reality. It's rather like reading a book on economics by a successful business founder, or a book on military history by someone who's been in combat, or a book on physics by someone who's been a practicing engineer applying that physics to reality. As the saying goes: "in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is."

Dr. Carin Bondar has "a PhD from the Faculty of Forestry in 2007 for her research on the ecological role of signal crayfish", which suggests that she is aware of how to get into the details of biology. But, she is also the mother of four children, and so when she is discussing the evolutionary tradeoffs (for a variety of species) of giving the firstborn more resources vs. cutting them off and giving to the youngest, she brings a certain intuitive awareness of the situation. As another example, on the discussion of all of the scientific theories for why a nursing mammalian mother might nurse young not their own, she examines all the preeminent theories but ends with: "Although there is support for all the aforementioned hypotheses, there remain other reasons for the existence of allonursing in the wild. Any human mother with an engorged breast will know that it's often a good idea to expel extra milk to avoid painful buildup or possible infection." A little empirical data (i.e. experience) can help a lot in evaluating competing theories.

She is also not too emotionally attached to her own experience, to shy away from showing us Mother Nature's raw edges in other species. Hyenas, for example. I might have had some sympathy for any woman who wanted to shy away from talking about that species, or perhaps just mention that they have a female-dominated social structure and leave it at that. Oh, no. Let's just say that the old saying that "Mother Nature is not a feminist", can use the biology of birth in hyenas as example 1. It's brutal, even in comparison to human birth in low-tech societies. Or spiders, which in some cases self-digest so that their young get a good first meal.

There are a lot of other uncomfortable topics that get discussed. For example, brood parasitism (e.g. the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in other birds nests, counting on them to care for their own chicks, even in the cases where the newly hatched cuckoo chick kills every other chick born to their adoptive parents). Cases where the mother will choose to starve a later-born child of theirs to death, so as to make sure they have enough food to keep at least the first-born alive. Cases where the mother realizes that it's not going to work, so they cut their losses by taking off and leaving all their newborns to die, so that they can survive and try again the next year (when perhaps there will be more rain, and thus more food available). There are a lot of hard-hearted choices that Wild Moms need to make, and they don't all make it the same way, either between or within species.

Motherhood is one of the most core phenomena of evolution, a place where fitness, as in "the survival of the fittest", is determined. Dr. Bondar does a good job of showing us how many different ways that fitness is determined.

[Jbussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Wild Mom's wildly interesting. I am truly disturbed by "Silvana rated it did not like it, "I am truly disturbed by the degree of anthropomorphism in Dr. Bondar's writing which unfortunately makes the book unreadable." HUH?
Anthropomorphism; noun: the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.
I hardly think that finding seemingly human characteristics is somehow negative. Further, I don’t think it was her intention to imply such. However, even if she did intentionally, wouldn’t that enable the reader to make a bridge toward understanding the subject a little better? I scarcely found any “Anthropomorphisms” and none that came within a scintilla of "unreadable"!? I agree with Heather and Anthony Faber’s Goodreads reviews. Specifically, “the variety of ways that have evolved to reproduce is quite amazing” This was a fun book.

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most fascinating books I've recently read. Things I did not know about such as Adult Orca Males and their Mothers and Grandmothers. Book answers alot of Questions and yet raises just as many. God's wonderful works of art that is nature. Highly recommended.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Lindsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very sciencey and hard to read. I expected a little more narrative.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

this author has given her children terribly homely names, just made up words. the book was quite boring.

[Nella]

I want to watch it

[Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm quite glad my mother didn't have twins

[Emajekral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Bought it for my mother, a biologist, based on an author interview and don't regret the decision. I'm now curiously about the author's previous wild book...

[Ivar Lozo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. Learned some new things. Good references. Would have given it 3.5 stars if that was possible.