Health and science journalist Chelsea Conaboy explodes the concept of "maternal instinct" and tells a new story about what it means to become a parent.
Conaboy expected things to change with the birth of her child. What she didn't expect was how different she would feel. But she would soon discover what was behind this: her changing brain. Though Conaboy was prepared for the endless dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, and the joy of holding her newborn, she did not anticipate this shift in self, as deep as it was disorienting. Mother Brain is a groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that untangles insidious myths from complicated realities.
New parents undergo major structural and functional brain changes, driven by hormones and the deluge of stimuli a baby provides. These neurobiological changes help all parents--birthing or otherwise--adapt in those intense first days and prepare for a long period of learning how to meet their child's needs. Pregnancy produces such significant changes in brain anatomy that researchers can easily sort those who have had one from those who haven't. And all highly involved parents, no matter their path to parenthood, develop similar caregiving circuitry. Yet this emerging science, which provides key insights into the wide-ranging experience of parenthood, from its larger role in shaping human nature to the intensity of our individual emotions, is mostly absent from the public conversation about parenthood.
The story that exists in the science today is far more meaningful than the idea that mothers spring into being by instinct. Weaving the latest neuroscience and social psychology together with new reporting, Conaboy reveals unexpected upsides, generations of scientific neglect, and a powerful new narrative of parenthood.
"Digging into neurological and cognitive research on becoming a parent, Conaboy contends that caregiving isn't as instinctual as often assumed...Conaboy's detailed research and eye-opening myth-busting add up to a cogent argument...Surprising and enlightening, this should be required reading for all caregivers."
--Publishers Weekly, *starred review*
"[Conaboy] deploys her journalistic skill to bring this complex subject to a readable level...Conaboy's book isn't a parenting manual but rather a work of pop science jam-packed with neurobiological research; it's both fascinating and surprisingly readable...Highly recommended."
-- Library Journal, *starred review*
"[A]n engaging book debut...The author deftly translates scientific studies--by neurobiologists, anthropologists, primatologists, psychologists, and endocrinologists, among others--into accessible prose that speaks to needs and anxieties that many parents share."
--Kirkus Reviews
" Mother Brain offers a science-based reassurance that 'unlike a rigid instinct, [parental aptitude] also can be repaired and redirected' by any motivated caregiver."
-- Science Magazine
"I learned so much from Mother Brain--about neuroscience, yes. But also about pernicious mythmaking, and the vast chasm between the reductive, sexist lines we're sold about motherhood versus the science and stories of how families are actually made, how brains and hearts and bodies are transformed by pregnancy and parenthood. Chelsea Conaboy has written a generous, engaging, deeply researched book that will change the way you think about your own parents, your children, and yourself."
--Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad
"Chelsea Conaboy presents a vital new narrative of what it means to parent, and to care. Meticulously researched and deeply personal, Mother Brain explores how parenting and caregiving shapes us, changes us, and makes us human. Compelling and compassionate, this is the book we need as we look towards a future where parenting, in all its diversity, is valued and celebrated."
--Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
"An awesomely detailed and refreshingly positive review of brain science as a rich source of explanations for the often surprising, commonly bewildering, routinely criticized experiences of parenthood...powerful, honest, and reassuring. A great read for beleaguered new (and old) parents."
--Professor Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain
"I absolutely loved Mother Brain. If I had read it in the early days of my recovery from postpartum psychosis, it would have been more than medicine--reassuring, legitimizing, and qualifying all those negative feelings that I thought were 'just me.'"
--Laura Dockrill, author of What Have I Done?
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1: At the Flip of a Switch
Chapter 2: The Making of a Mother's Instinct
Chapter 3: Attention, Please
Chapter 4: Our Babies, Our Selves
Chapter 5: The Ancient Family Tree
Chapter 6: Inclined to Care
Chapter 7: Start Where You Are
Chapter 8: The One in the Mirror
Chapter 9: Between Us
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Chelsea Conaboy is a journalist specializing in personal and public health. She was part of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer prize-winning team for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and more recently has worked as a magazine writer with bylines at Mother Jones, Politico, The Week, the Boston Globe Magazine, and others. She lives in Maine with her husband, their two young sons, and her own changing maternal brain.
Henry Holt & Company
Pub Date: September 13, 2022
1.21" H x 9.43" L x 6.47" W
368 pages
hardcover