Motherhood - Is It for Me?

Many women question whether they want a baby or a childfree life. Motherhood - Is It For Me? is the perfect resource for addressing this crucial life choice. Find out what family planning might really mean for you with this insightful book, which offers every woman a clear path to understanding her ambivalence, moving through it, and making an informed decision about becoming a mother or remaining childfree.

For partnered and single women alike, this self-help guide will lead you to your truth, gently and nonjudgmentally. A series of exercises--done at your own pace or over the book's recommended 12 weeks--will enable you to navigate through your immobilization. You'll learn how to let go of external circumstances that cloud the motherhood decision. No one can make the motherhood decision for you, but this self-help guide for women will help you to say hello to a new future--one of clarity and brightness.

Motherhood - Is It For Me? can be read and used individually or in a women's group. Many women feel that there's nowhere to turn when they can't decide whether to become mothers; they're unsure how to think about family planning. Some think they don't want to be a mother at all, or they might be deciding whether to become pregnant after 35 and have a baby. In all of these circumstances, women can feel lonely, isolated and debilitated. If you have these feelings, you're not alone; so, whether you read Motherhood - Is It For Me? as an individual or in a women's group, doing the exercises will lead you to clarity.

This self-help guide includes 20 stories from women of diverse backgrounds who share their decision-making journeys; half of these women chose motherhood while half decided on a childfree life. These women's stories create a valuable, supportive community by breaking the isolation that women often feel when they don't know their own truths about motherhood.

The authors of this book, who are both licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, created the Motherhood-Is it for me?(TM) program in 1991--it has had more than 25 years of proven success. Motherhood - Is It For Me? brings the methods used in that innovative, insightful program to paperback or e-book. Motherhood - Is It For Me? provides the path to a woman's deepest desire so that she can make the motherhood decision that feels right for her. It's a must-read if you're undecided. I really wanted to like this book, and had such high hopes because of the reviews.

I'm giving it 3 stars instead of 1 because I can see that it would work for some women. If you are a very spiritual person, or if you believe you are struggling with the decision about having children because of unresolved trauma in your past, then it is very possible you will find this book useful.

However if you're like me, and you're struggling with this decision because you're simply an indecisive person, and you're a distinctly NON-spiritual person, I don't think you'll get much out of this book. I was hoping for concrete, tangible exercises and steps I could take. Instead each chapter opens with "guided visualizations", most of which irritated me so much that I couldn't concentrate on the rest of the chapter. There's a lot of talk about "finding your truth". The bulk of the other exercises focus on digging up unresolved issues from childhood or from your relationship with your own mother, or involve writing letters to yourself as a child, or your unborn hypothetical child, things like that. If this type of thing doesn't resonate with you, you won't get much out of the book.

tl;dr version: Probably useful for some women, but if you had a happy childhood and a healthy relationship with your mother, and you're a non-spiritual person, you likely won't find many answers here.