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The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life
 
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The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life [Hardcover]

Harriet Lerner (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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How does motherhood change you? Who or what do you become when you become a mother? "We can't begin to know what our children will evoke in us until we have them," says psychologist and psychotherapist Dr. Harriet Lerner, author of the bestselling The Dance of Anger. Lerner set out to write a book on parenting, and ended up with a thoughtful and honest book focusing on the experience of being a mother--a woman's experiences, needs, and changes as she travels through the trials and pleasures of pregnancy, birth, power struggles, guilt, anxiety, relationship challenges, sibling struggles, and separation. Filled with personal stories and case studies, The Mother Dance offers mothers-to-be a guide for the road ahead, and women who are already mothers will recognize their own dilemmas and situations, and gain clarity about their experiences. Throughout, Lerner is wise, personal, and truthful about her own failings. This book is a welcome addition to the recent discourse on the mothering experience. --Ericka Lutz

From Library Journal

Lerner reads her own work on motherhood with mixed success. She may characterize motherhood as a dance, but what she describes is more of a rollercoaster ride. She shows parenting as a challenging, confusing, and, at times, exhilarating emotional mix of worry, guilt, and joy. As might be expected, she begins with the experience of pregnancy and ends with the empty-nest syndrome. Throughout, she illustrates her points with stories from bringing up her own two boys. She borrows from friends and others to show the unique relationships between mothers and daughters. Hers is not so much a guide for mothers-to-be as it is splendid reassurance for women in the thick of it. The only weakness is Lerner's measured reading pace. It is too slow and seems stilted?a marked contrast to the lively subject matter.?Jeanne Leader, Everett Community Coll. Lib., WA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, April 3 2009
By 
This review is from: The Mother Dance (Paperback)
This is a great book and an easy read. I've read some of the other reviews that seem to paint Ms. Lerner as some kind of child-hater. I just don't think that's true. She is absolutely honest about the trials and tribulations of having children, including how it changes your relationships with everyone. I think that this book is invaluable to those of us enlightened enough to accept that having kids is not 'sunshine and happiness' all the time. Those reviewers who rail against the idea that a mother can lose touch with herself while mothering are either wilfully blind to this very real issue OR they think that women are not worthy of having their own identity. Personally, I very much enjoyed Ms. Lerner's book. Her love for her children is obvious. It was great to have her shine an honest light on the path she travelled while raising her sons. Her advice is honest, easy to understand and very valuable.
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2.0 out of 5 stars Depressing!, July 18 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mother Dance (Paperback)
I was looking for some advice on how to move from being career-centered to being family-centered. I did not find anything to help me in Lerner's book. I am not sure what Lerner's motive was in writing this book. Some people should not have children, and I believe Lerner falls into this category. I actually ended up feeling sorry for her about halfway through the book because child rearing (what little she seemed to do) was obviously very painful for her. I could not find one piece of sound advice. The section on nutrition, where Lerner allowed her young boys to shop for and eat whatever they pleased whenever they pleased, was absolutely preposterous. She did not appear to know her children at all. The book seemed like one big apology to them.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Good, except..., Mar 10 2004
By 
M. Boesch (Nebraska, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mother Dance (Paperback)
I found this book to be well-written, humorous and honest. The author does a good job discussing some of the various "larger societal forces" that help to shape our choices as women and as mothers. Of particular interest to me was the connection between how we relate to our children and how we related to others in our "first family" or "family of origin." This book covered topics I have not seen discussed in other parenting books - for example, the author discusses "empty-nest-syndrome" and how we are affected by gender roles.

That all being said, I was turned off by the bleak picture she presented of stay-at-home mothers. I felt she presented this option as something women are "forced" to do, or end up doing because they are on "automatic pilot." The author makes references to how women lose themselves, their power, and their money if they stay at home. And throughout reading this, I couldn't help but ponder the title - "...How Children Change Your Life". It seems rather ironic because I got the feeling the author was hell-bent on NOT changing her life after her children came along.
If you can get past the negative homemaker/full-time mother references, this book has information that is interesting and helpful and it is also humorous. I do feel, however, that a book that does ALL mothers more justice is Kathleen A. Kendall-Tackett's "The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood."

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