By Christian Coleman

The start of the forty-seventh administration in the White House sounded off the red alert for mothers of all stripes in the US. They were already on high alert during the years leading up to the 2024 elections. For the next four years, mothers will be Mothering with a capital M against this administration’s wrecking-ball rampage. Mothers making sure people who can become pregnant get the abortion care they need. Mothers who take in gay and trans children who’ve been rejected by their blood relatives. Mothers running for school boards to prevent 47’s barrage of book bans. Mothers advocating for the rights and accessibility for disabled parents. Mothers fighting against poverty so families can take care of their children without worrying about a precarious social net. This Mother’s Day, this handful of titles will get you in the spirit of your Mothering era. But first, brunch.

After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion

“[W]hat we have seen so far is that the predicted evisceration of abortion access has not materialized. In fact, because of the people profiled in this book—and many more like them throughout the country—we’ve seen quite the opposite. In the face of the major blow of overturning Roe, abortion has continued, maybe even stronger than before. How people are obtaining and providing abortions is changing and morphing as circumstances require, but people looking for an abortion are, once again, proving that they will always find a way to access it. And providers and supporters, like their predecessors, are proving once more that they will do everything they can to help women and other people capable of pregnancy control this central aspect of their lives.”
—David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe 

And the Category Is . . . : Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community

“Built out of the human need for lineage and legacy, the house system is a clan barreling toward posterity with a common cause: freedom. And on an individual level, just like with biological families, these houses, Lanvin, Ebony, LaBeija, Pendavis, Mugler, et al., provide LGBTQ BIPOC youth an opportunity to metabolize centuries of generational trauma. Every gay parent, every gay child, is a chance to start anew.”
—Ricky Tucker 

Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family

“You were so young when you started asking different forms of a question I have pondered over a lifetime—a question many like us have confronted and answered in different ways for centuries. What does it mean to be Asian American? Although it’s probably not developmentally appropriate for a three- or five-year-old, this book is my way of exploring this question, and continuing our conversation you started. Your questions often remind me of my own journey of racial consciousness. Growing up in a working-class White immigrant town in western Massachusetts, I understood at a young age what Toni Morrison meant when she said, ‘In this country, American means White. Everybody else has to hyphenate.’”
—OiYan Poon 

Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture

“Rose is not a snarling, oafish white man screaming incoherently about “white rights” or about Hillary Clinton running a child-sex-trafficking operation. Such a figure would be a hard sell to moms eager to raise their kids free from toxic mattress toppers. Rose presents a calm, sane impression of simply “asking questions,” and, most significantly, she presents herself as a loving mom, a good mom. A pretty mom. A white mom. And in this culture (and many other Western cultures), we’ve been taught to trust a good (white) mom, to never question her authority if it stems directly from her (good [white]) motherhood. If we trust her to recommend safe mattress toppers, maybe we should open our minds to trust her about other things as well? Like “QAnon stuff.” Social media, and the various algorithms impacting how we all want to look and how we all think, have made it easier and easier for “nice white moms” like Rose to embrace and spread disinformation and conspiracy theories.”
—Sara Petersen 

School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education

In a short period of time, this changed how moms—those practiced school volunteers—applied their expertise and offered their time. It may have surprised some to see the shift from wrapping-paper fundraisers to political organizing, but it is more natural than you’d think. That is because mothers’ labor has long been an undervalued force. Moms were already expert in assembling networks, organizing volunteer labor, and considering how best to respond to policies impacting children’s experiences. Now, they simply applied those skills in a new setting. The reality was that moms were tapping abilities that few gave them credit for having. An important lesson from this moment is the degree to which society has failed to acknowledge the detailed work of motherhood.”
—Laura Pappano 

Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty

“Ruby Duncan felt that she was on her way to eradicating poverty in her community. Now she’s well past the age when she can think of going back to organizing. But the key to her approach is as relevant today as it ever was. You have to feed the children. But you also have to build self-esteem among their mothers, women who have been despised for so long that they’ve begun to despise themselves. Duncan’s great hope is that today’s young women will carry on her challenge: to break down the barriers against decent jobs, healthcare, daycare, housing, and education for poor women and their children, and to establish those goals as a birthright for all Americans.”
—Annelise Orleck 

Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control

“I came to motherhood for the fantasy of family, but I stayed, at least in part, for the scientific and spiritual mysteries that shrouded my body, thanks to the sex education I had—and had not—received when I was young. Though most of what I knew about women’s bodies came from the cultural narratives I consumed growing up, my formal schooling around sex began in fifth grade, when my class was divided into rooms based on gender. Each group was forced to watch their own traumatizing videos on the terror of puberty. Girls went home with pads; boys, as far as I could tell, went home with permission to masturbate.”
—Amanda Montei 

Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World

“Parenting, for everyone, when seen through the lens of their life before parenting, is unthinkable. Parenting two kids, through the lens of parenting one, is unimaginable. Every new stage of parenting is impossible to comprehend before you’re there. And yet we do it. We keep our kids safe; we love them in a way we never imagined; we delight in their lives. Our capacities exceed our imagination—they grow from our creativity. Disabled parenting is the same. If you look at my life through the lens of your body, it may seem unsustainable. But my capacity—for joy, for innovation, for community—is enough. Disabled parents, out of necessity, must reject the rules and standards that guide nondisabled parents.”
—Jessica Slice 

“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

“Blaming parents for their children’s weight isn’t based in any observable scientific truth, nor does it remedy anything. It only leads to stigma, isolation, and fractured family systems, inviting more pain into the lives of fat kids. It is a reflection of a society that rejects fatness at every turn, making it an issue of personal responsibility so that it can reject fat people once again. And it is a reflection of a society that projects adult anxieties about a purported “obesity epidemic” onto children, then expects children to resolve those anxieties for us. In the process, we make children into political footballs, and we sacrifice their physical health, mental health, self-esteem, relationships, and dignity in the process.”
—Aubrey Gordon 

About the Author 

Christian Coleman is the digital marketing manager at Beacon Press and editor of Beacon Broadside. Before joining Beacon, he worked in writing, copy editing, and marketing positions at Sustainable Silicon Valley and Trikone. He graduated from Boston College and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Follow him on Twitter at @coleman_II and on Bluesky at @colemanthe2nd.bsky.social.