Best, Most Awful Job

Katherine May is an author of fiction and memoir whose most recent works have shown a willingness to deal frankly with the more ambiguous aspects of parenting. In The Electricity of Every Living Thing she explored the challenges - and joys - of being an autistic mother, and sparked a debate about the right of mothers to ask for solitude. In the forthcoming Wintering, she looks at the ways in which parenting can lead to periods of isolation and stress. She lives with her husband and son in Whitstable, Kent.

• CONTENTS; Introduction vii; Katherine May; What Your Mother Didn't Tell You 1; Leah Hazard; On the Shock of a Surprise Pregnancy 7; Javaria Akbar; Maternal Rage 15; Saima Mir; High on Oxytocin and Tea 23; Jodi Bartle; By Instinct 29; Huma Qureshi; A Heartbeat 37; Peggy Riley; The Absence 49; Emily Morris; Learning to Be a Mother 63; Michelle AdamsCan I Touch Myself, Though? 73; Hollie McNish; Brief Exchanges 83; Susana Moreira Marques, translated by Julia Sanches; On Stigma and Stoicism 97; Dani McClain; On Working Out What It All Means 105; Josie George; Boys Will Be Whatever 113; Michelle Tea; The Psychic 121; Charlene Allcott; An Honour I Probably Don't Deserve 129; Jenny Parrott; The Dishes 137; Sharmila Chauhan; Sometimes the Other Way Around 147; Joanne Limburg; Misfit 157; MiMi Aye; Maternal Landscapes 165; Carolina Alvarado Molk; Living with Children 173; Tiphanie Yanique; Acknowledgements 181; Contributor Biographies 183

'All the pain, power and privilege of being a mother is here in these tales of stepparenting; being unable to conceive; having six children; single parenthood; and of how race, class, disability, religion and sexuality affect our perceptions of motherhood' - Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller Editor's Choice