Showing results for "motherhood" in LGBTQ2S+

When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy's plans don't include her overzealous, evangelical mother - or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru. Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first.

They are everywhere on social media. Images of perfect, pleasant women with perfect, pretty children in perfect, tidy homes—the epitome of “good” moms. But this model of motherhood is an illusion that far too many women either measure themselves against or simply cannot relate to in the first place. Enter Jamilah Mapp and Erica Dickerson: if you are sex-positive, cannabis-friendly, and love sharing NSFW stories with your fellow mom friends, you’re not doing anything wrong and you are definitely not a bad mother. And Jamilah and Erica are your tribe.

Jenn Berney was one of those people who knew she was destined for motherhood - it wasn't a question of if, but when. So when she and her wife, Kelly, decided to start building their family, they took the next logical step: They went to a fertility clinic. But they soon found themselves entrenched in a medical establishment that didn't know what to do with people like them. With no man factoring into their relationship, doctors were at best embarrassed and at worst disparaging of the couple. Soon Jenn found herself stepping outside of the system determined to disregard her.

They number in the millions and they are incredibly important to families and to our society, yet they are underappreciated, little respected, and even controversial. Who are they? They are the stay-at-home moms. In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms is a special book, a profound and unique understanding of how important it is for mothers to raise their own children.

Vern - seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised - flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties.

I'm Jen Brister, stand-up comedian, middle-aged adolescent and, more recently, a mum. But not that mum - I'm the other one. Confused? Let’s back up a bit. Two years ago, my partner (a woman - we're not solicitors) gave birth to twins. Like every new parent, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Add ‘gay’ and ‘non-biological’ to the mix and what do you get? Not a weird box of detergent, but a panicked beige lesbian desperately googling, ‘Will my babies love me?’ at 3 a.m. This is a book for any parent who feels they don’t fit the mould of a traditional 2.4 family.

Coming out to Mom is a lesbian rite of passage. In the third edition of this landmark anthology, 34 remarkable women face their fears and confusion, prejudice and misunderstandings, and speak honestly and bravely about the difficulties and joys of life with their "different daughters". Among the topics of discussion are family, community, religion, grandchildren, bisexuality, transgenderism, and coming out.

In 2009, Jodie Patterson, mother of five and beauty entrepreneur, has her world turned upside-down when her determined toddler, Penelope, reveals, "Mama, I’m not a girl. I am a boy." The Pattersons are a tribe of unapologetic Black matriarchs, scholars, financiers, Southern activists, artists, musicians, and disruptors, but with Penelope’s revelation, Jodie realizes her existing definition of family isn’t wide enough for her child’s needs. In The Bold World, we witness Patterson learning how to meet the needs of her transgender son.

From the age of two-and-a-half, Jacob, born “Em”, adamantly told his family he was a boy. While his mother Mimi struggled to understand and come to terms with the fact that her child may be transgender, she experienced a sense of déjà vu - the journey to uncover the source of her child’s inner turmoil unearthed ghosts from Mimi’s past and her own struggle to live an authentic life.