Hannah

“He cried when she tried to leave him with a family friend, and then cried when she successfully left him with a babysitter, and then cried even when she left him with her husband because she had to go get groceries and really just wanted to enjoy it, get a coffee and put it in the little holder that attached to the side of the cart, and really examine the produce, you know, look at it and touch it and take her time. She just wanted one shopping trip to herself, and yet they all wound up going together—packing up the diaper bag with snacks and wipes and a bottle of water and a change of clothes and a selection of toys and should we bring a book?—”
― Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch

“I cannot stress this enough: there truly is no right or wrong way to care for your baby; there are simply easier and more difficult ways, both for now and in the longer-term. Remember you and your partner are the parents, not other family members or friends or even professionals who work with babies.”
― Dorothy Waide, Simply Parenting: From 12 Weeks to 12 Months

“That’s our subconscious mind at work. Studies tell us that 95 per cent of behaviour is driven by our subconscious.8,9 We have to question these beliefs so that we see what is driving our thinking and behaviour so that we can challenge our thoughts about how we think motherhood ‘should’ be. Let’s toss these unhelpful beliefs out and replace them with the freedom to decide how we choose our version of motherhood to be.”
― Zoe Blaskey, Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations

“We know being a parent means getting a lot of advice, but this advice is almost never accompanied by an explanation of why something is true or not, or to what degree we can even know it’s true. And by not explaining why, we remove people’s ability to think about these choices for themselves, with their own preferences playing a role. Parents are people, too, and they deserve better.”
― Emily Oster, Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool