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"As I&amp;#039;ve mentioned, reading every pregnancy and parenting book I could get my hands on made both pregnancy and parenting MORE stressful for me. I recently wrote to a friend who&amp;#039;s expecting: &amp;quot;I literally read every pregnancy book, and although I was QUITE the know-it-all, in hindsight I think taking up needlepoint would have been a better use of my time. And needlepoint would have caused WAY less stress!&amp;quot; And then this happened: I was at an amazing brunch with a bunch of fellow mamas over the weekend (more on that later) and I mentioned that I had recently issued a household ban on parenting books. But one of the other mothers (the lovely mama of two behind Hi + Low) said I just HAD to read Beth Ann Fennelly&amp;#039;s Great With Child: Letters to a Young Mother. The funny thing is, my friend Joanna (who had invited to me to the brunch) had mentioned the book on her blog, but I was already post-pregnancy at that point so I figured the book wouldn&amp;#039;t apply to me. My god, was I wrong.  My copy of Great With Child arrived yesterday, and I&amp;#039;m already 119 pages into the 220-page book. Staying up and reading until 2 a.m. is nothing new for me (I finished The Huger Games trilogy in four days) but a parenting book has never gripped me quite like this one. The whole time I was reading last night, I kept thinking, &amp;quot;I must tell my blog readers about THIS passage! No, this one!&amp;quot; I wanted to photocopy paragraph after paragraph and wallpaper my world with the pages. The book is a collection of letters from a college professor with an almost-3-year-old to one of her former students, Kathleen, who became pregnant in her early 20s. Kathleen&amp;#039;s parents had both died and she had moved to a new town away from her friends, so she was worried about where she&amp;#039;d get the parenting advice that families and friends pass along so naturally. Her professor promised to write letters during the pregnancy, and those letters later became a book full of words that are so beautiful and true that I could cry\u2014except I&amp;#039;m so happy to finally (finally!) be reading a book that speaks to my heart&amp;#039;s need to mother rather than my brain&amp;#039;s need to tick off milestones or triple-underline potential food allergens from a checklist.  And to that end, this passage seems especially fitting: &amp;quot;Ultimately, Kathleen, I think you will be happy with whatever you and Robert decide. And, sadly, whatever you decide will probably fetch some criticism. One of the really strange things I&amp;#039;ve come to learn about the culture of motherhood is that it&amp;#039;s very judgmental. The harshest critics of mothers are other mothers. I&amp;#039;m not sure why this is so\u2014perhaps because expectant mothers receive so much hysteria-tinged advice that we feel paranoid. (&amp;quot;Before every single bite of food you put in your mouth, ask yourself, &amp;#039;Is this really the best thing for my baby?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; one book recommended\u2014shortly before I hurled it across the living room.) So perhaps we&amp;#039;ve grown so confused and doubtful of our own instincts and abilities that we cling fiercely to the idea that our decisions are right\u2014which must mean all other decisions are wrong. &amp;quot;What helps me calm my fears and mute my criticisms is viewing our child rearing through the lens of history. We don&amp;#039;t have to go back very far to see that our rigid standards for prenatal care are rather recent. Many in my generation had mothers who smoked and drank throughout pregnancy. My friend Katrina told me her mom went into labor during a Stroh&amp;#039;s Brewery tour! Even today, advice for expectant moms varies enormously from country to country. Frenchwomen aren&amp;#039;t told to avoid Brie or reduce their alcohol*. Italian women aren&amp;#039;t told to cut down on caffeine, though their weight is monitored closely. British women are told they can have up to eight drinks a week, but to avoid peanuts and peanut butter. My Irish friend said that the first thing they brought her in the Dublin hospital after she gave birth was a pint of Guinness, &amp;quot;to help her milk come in.&amp;quot; We could decide to be confused for overwhelmed by these variations\u2014or decide that there is a range of ways to grow a healthy baby. Trust the decisions that you and Robert make, and don&amp;#039;t judge yourself (or other new mothers) too harshly.&amp;quot; Excerpted from Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother, published by W. W. Norton &amp;amp;amp; Company (2006).  Of course the letters were initially meant for someone else, but I feel like so many of them\u2014that one in particular\u2014are speaking directly to me. If you&amp;#039;re pregnant, buy this book. If you know someone who&amp;#039;s pregnant, buy this book for her. If you have a young child and could use some healthy perspective without a side order of guilt, buy this book now! *Among my friends, I&amp;#039;ve noticed that many use Frenchwomen as the gold standard of a laid-back pregnant woman. &amp;quot;Frenchwomen have eaten unpasturized cheese through their pregnancies for centuries, and they&amp;#039;re not paranoid,&amp;quot; these friends will scoff, while cutting into a wedge of camembert. But I recently learned that Frenchwomen tend to pass on salad greens while pregnant. (For fear of lysteria, I believe? Or maybe it&amp;#039;s E.coli?) So it would appear that we all have our hang-ups. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/family-friends/a47624/must-read-pregnancy-book/>