Download or read book Single Mothers by Choice written by Jane Mattes, L.C.S.W. and published by Harmony. This book was released on 1994-05-10 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first handbook for the paoidly growing number of American women choosing single motherhood, written by the director of the national organization, Single Mothers by Choice.

Download or read book Choosing Single Parenthood Stories from Solo Parents by Choice written by Mali Bain and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology shares stories from choice parents in Canada: from conception and fertility, to parenting, to unexpected ways their lives have been transformed by the choice to create a family as a single parent.

Download or read book Choosing Single Motherhood written by Mikki Morrissette and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comprehensive guide for single women interested in proactively becoming a mother--includes the essential tools needed to decide whether to take this step, information on how best to follow through, and insight about answering the child's questions and needs over time. Choosing Single Motherhood, written by a longtime journalist and Choice Mother (a woman who chooses to conceive or adopt without a life partner), will become the indispensable tool for women looking for both support and insight. Based on extensive up-to-date research, advice from child experts and family therapists, as well as interviews with more than one hundred single women, this book explores common questions and concerns of women facing this decision, including: - Can I afford to do this? - Should I wait longer to see if life turns a new corner? - How do Choice Mothers handle the stress of solo parenting? - What the research says about growing up in a single-parent household - How to answer a child's "daddy" questions - The facts about adoption, anonymous donor insemination, and finding a known donor - How the children of pioneering Choice Mothers feel about their lives Written in a lively style that never sugarcoats or sweeps problems under the rug, Choosing Single Motherhood covers the topic clearly, concisely, and with a great deal of heart.

Download or read book Motherhood Reimagined written by Sarah Kowalski and published by She Writes Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the age of thirty-nine, Sarah Kowalski heard her biological clock ticking, loudly. A single woman harboring a deep ambivalence about motherhood, Kowalski needed to decide once and for all: Did she want a baby or not? More importantly, with no partner on the horizon, did she want to have a baby alone? Once she revised her idea of motherhood—from an experience she would share with a partner to a journey she would embark upon alone—the answer came up a resounding Yes. After exploring her options, Kowalski chose to conceive using a sperm donor, but her plan stopped short when a doctor declared her infertile. How far would she go to make motherhood a reality? Kowalski catapulted herself into a diligent regimen of herbs, Qigong, meditation, acupuncture, and more, in a quest to improve her chances of conception. Along the way, she delved deep into spiritual healing practices, facing down demons of self-doubt and self-hatred, ultimately discovering an unconventional path to parenthood. In the end, to become a mother, Kowalski did everything she said she would never do. And she wouldn't change a thing. A story of personal triumph and unconditional love, Motherhood Reimagined reveals what happens when we release what's expected and embrace what's possible.

Download or read book Finding Our Families written by Wendy Kramer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive book that offers invaluable step-by-step advice for families with donor-conceived children. Wendy Kramer, founder and director of the Donor Sibling Registry, and Naomi Cahn, family and reproductive law professor, have compiled a comprehensive and thorough guide for the growing community of families with donor-conceived children. Kramer and Cahn believe that all donor-conceived children’s desire to know their genetic family must be honored, and in Finding Our Families, they offer advice on how to foster healthy relationships within immediate families and their larger donor family networks based on openness and acceptance. With honesty and compassion, the authors offer thoughtful strategies and inspirational stories to help parents answer their own, and their children’s, questions and concerns that will surely arise, including: How to support your children’s curiosity and desire to know about their ancestry and genetic and medical background. How to help children integrate their birth story into a healthy self-image. How to help your children search for their donor or half siblings if and when they express interest in doing so. Finding Our Families opens up the lives of donor-conceived people who may be coping with uncertainty, thriving despite it, and finding novel ways to connect in this uncharted territory as they navigate the challenges and rewards of the world of donor conception.

Download or read book Mommies Daddies Donors Surrogates written by Diane Ehrensaft and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you need help having a baby, reproductive technology can supply the answer. But it also raises a host of questions that won’t arise until after the child is born: What will you say to “Where did I come from?” when the answer includes a donor or surrogate? Will knowing the truth about how you conceived make your child love you less? Will having a baby with someone else strain your relationship with your spouse or partner? What will grandparents, family members, friends, and coworkers think? Dr. Diane Ehrensaft--a developmental and clinical psychologist who’s worked with families formed using assisted reproductive technology for more than 20 years--helps you anticipate the big questions and find solutions that are right for you and your loved ones. Dr. Ehrensaft offers information, support, and straightforward advice for coping with private worries, confronting public prejudices, and raising happy, healthy children. Single or married, straight or gay, anyone looking forward to the joys and challenges of building a family with the help of a donor or surrogate will discover a wealth of thought-provoking ideas and fresh insights in this sensitive, practical, and positive book.

Download or read book Going Solo written by Jean Renvoize and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-09 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1985, this, at the time, controversial book explores the fundamental changes in personal relationships that had taken place over the previous decade, focusing on women who had deliberately chosen to have children outside a permanent relationship. After travelling widely throughout Britain, the United States and Holland meeting those personally involved, Jean Renvoize discusses why a growing number of women were deciding to become single mothers. She discovers the implications of this for the future of the family and for old-style love and commitment between the sexes. She analyses the position both of the children of these single families and of their mothers. She looks at men’s feelings about being used a ‘stud’ and uncovers the desire of some men to have a family without being financially and emotionally involved with a long-term partner. Importantly, Jean Renvoize places the new style of personal relationship in the context of the advance of the women’s movement. It is clear that ordinary and non-political women’s and men’s lives have been more fundamentally changed by feminism than they may realise. But few of the mothers interviewed by the author are actively feminist: lesbians apart, they all have in common past relationships with men, and would happily settle with the right man could their high expectations be met. Without exception, all those who made the deliberate choice to ‘go solo’ have loving, joyful and rewarding experiences of motherhood. Having a child alone has been fraught with problems for all, but those who have met the challenge have found such great fulfilment that one is faced with an inevitable question: are a woman and her child better off without a man? When so many marriages end in divorce, is a stable unit of two better than a broken unit of three? But also, might those without the motivation of successful ‘solo mothers’ rush thoughtlessly into motherhood – and find themselves exhausted, broke and very unhappy? Presenting in their own words the experiences of those directly involved, this was above all a practical book. It provided welcome and necessary insights into the changing pattern of relationships at the time – for the married and unmarried; for parents and non-parents. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Download or read book Going Solo written by Genevieve Roberts and published by Piatkus. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Going Solo is the empowering and uplifting story of one woman's choice to become a single mother. 'I hope this story gives hope to anyone who wants children and to anyone who finds themselves single. Not to follow this path necessarily, but to remember that there are always many options.' Aged thirty-seven, single and having experienced two miscarriages, Genevieve Roberts found out that her fertility levels were dwlindling. On hearing this news, she made the courageous decision to embark on motherhood solo and eventually became pregnant using a sperm donor. Genevieve describes her initial fear of the prospect of birth without a partner, and the trepidation she felt towards all the responsibility she has taken on. She recounts all the milestones of pregnancy and motherhood that most women share with their partner -- going to NCT classes alone, taking part in birthing workshops with her sister-in-law, her amazement that two people in her pregnancy yoga class are following the same path as her. But ultimately what triumphs is Genevieve's excitement at meeting her daughter. She recalls the first months of parenthood, navigating the love, worry and tiredness of life with a newborn without a partner. She describes the beautiful simplicity of the relationship between herself and her daughter, as she gets to know Astrid without having to consider a partner. Going Solo is for anyone whose life has taken an unexpected twist; for people who are interested in modern families and for those who want to take control of their life and follow their dreams of parenthood. It celebrates the fulfilment that comes from following what makes you happy, and reminds us that beauty may be found when life offers a surprise or a deviation from convention.

Download or read book The Single Mother s Social Club written by Jacinta Tynan and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2021-07-02 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An intimate guide to resilience and healing.' Juanita Phillips, author of A Pressure Cooker Saved My Life 'With strength, insight and candour, Jacinta Tynan has single-handedly shifted the stigma around single parenting and repositioned it not as a failure, but as a purposeful and optimistic life choice . . . Jacinta brings her trademark wit and heart to a handbook for all those whose lives are not necessarily broken, but a different shape of whole.' Angela Mollard, News Corp journalist So, this isn't at all what you had in mind, or where you thought you'd end up . . . as a single parent, raising kids on your own - at least some of the time. You're battling the day-to-day grind, making life-defining decisions while helping with homework, shoelaces and Book Week costumes, all the while working and maybe even having a social life. It can be arduous, lonely and overwhelming. But it can also be liberating - not just adapting to your new normal, but wholeheartedly embracing it. What if you saw your circumstances as an opportunity for new beginnings and a call to step up in ways you never thought possible? In The Single Mother's Social Club, journalist Jacinta Tynan interviews experts and single mothers to share the best advice for thriving when you're the only adult in the home, along with her own experiences of making it as a single mum. You can look back and lament. Or you can join the club.

Download or read book Growing Up with a Single Parent written by Sara McLanahan and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nonwhite and white, rich and poor, born to an unwed mother or weathering divorce, over half of all children in the current generation will live in a single-parent family--and these children simply will not fare as well as their peers who live with both parents. This is the clear and urgent message of this powerful book. Based on four national surveys and drawing on more than a decade of research, Growing Up with a Single Parent sharply demonstrates the connection between family structure and a child's prospects for success. What are the chances that the child of a single parent will graduate from high school, go on to college, find and keep a job? Will she become a teenage mother? Will he be out of school and out of work? These are the questions the authors pursue across the spectrum of race, gender, and class. Children whose parents live apart, the authors find, are twice as likely to drop out of high school as those in two-parent families, one and a half times as likely to be idle in young adulthood, twice as likely to become single parents themselves. This study shows how divorce--particularly an attendant drop in income, parental involvement, and access to community resources--diminishes children's chances for well-being. The authors provide answers to other practical questions that many single parents may ask: Does the gender of the child or the custodial parent affect these outcomes? Does having a stepparent, a grandmother, or a nonmarital partner in the household help or hurt? Do children who stay in the same community after divorce fare better? Their data reveal that some of the advantages often associated with being white are really a function of family structure, and that some of the advantages associated with having educated parents evaporate when those parents separate. In a concluding chapter, McLanahan and Sandefur offer clear recommendations for rethinking our current policies. Single parents are here to stay, and their worsening situation is tearing at the fabric of our society. It is imperative, the authors show, that we shift more of the costs of raising children from mothers to fathers and from parents to society at large. Likewise, we must develop universal assistance programs that benefit low-income two-parent families as well as single mothers. Startling in its findings and trenchant in its analysis, Growing Up with a Single Parent will serve to inform both the personal decisions and governmental policies that affect our children's--and our nation's--future.

Download or read book Happy Together a Single Mother by Choice Story written by Julie Marie and published by Happy Together Children's Book. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Happy Together, a single mother by choice story, is a heartwarming book to help share the family building story with a young child. A story told through clear language and cheerful illustrations, readers will join Mommy bear on the journey to fulfill her greatest wish of becoming a parent. With help from a doctor and a donor, Mommy's dream came true and a baby was welcomed with great joy!

Download or read book Single Parents and Their Children written by Bella DePaulo and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Single Parents and Their Children" is a myth-busting, consciousness-raising collection of articles that defies all of the stereotypes that diminish and degrade single-parent families. Drawing from scientific research, Dr. Bella DePaulo shows that the dire predictions about the fate of the children of single parents are grossly exaggerated or just plain wrong. What's more, there are ways in which the children of single parents are doing better than everyone else. That's the good news no one ever tells you. Professor DePaulo has been described by Atlantic magazine as "America's foremost thinker and writer on the single experience." This book includes more than a dozen of her most influential writings on single parents and their children. Essays inspired by the daughter of a single mother and guest articles by independent parent Tricia Parker are also featured. Bella DePaulo's articles originally appeared in her popular "Living Single" blog at Psychology Today and her "Single at Heart" blog at PsychCentral, as well as in the Guardian.

Download or read book Single by Chance Mothers by Choice written by Rosanna Hertz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable number of women taking the daunting step of having children outside of marriage is explored in this account of this fast-growing phenomenon, revealing why middle-class women have taken an unorthodox approach to parenthood and how they are making it work.

Download or read book I ve Got Dibs written by Amy Dorfman and published by With an X Press. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I've Got Dibs! is a sweet story of a mother and daughter discussing the young girl's donor siblings for the first time. The conversation focuses on the special connection a donor-conceived child has with other children conceived using the same donor. I've Got Dibs! is a great way to start this conversation with your children, your child's friends, as well as the adults in your life who may be struggling to understand these unique relationships. By sharing this book with her own child the author has helped her daughter confidently respond to questions about her own donor siblings and more importantly understand and appreciate her own special donor family.

Download or read book Unbroken Homes written by J Dianne Garner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the real-life triumphs and tragedies of single-parent mothers! Unbroken Homes is a “story quilt” of personal narratives constructed from in-depth, case study interviews of five single-parent mothers. The book chronicles their journeys as mothers, daughters, and women, in relationships and in solitude, displaying their stories in their own words like the squares of a multicolored quilt. Unbroken Homes breaks through the stigma associated with “broken homes” and provides a new perspective on the reorganization of American families. Unbroken Homes encourages you to rethink some damaging stereotypical assumptions about children from single-mother headed homes. Drawing information from family research, counseling, and a cross-section of social sciences, this book is pertinent to any professional who works with single parents or their children. Unbroken Homes does not deal with what is “typical” in the single-parenting experience, nor does it give advice or proselytize. Rather, its purpose is to discover the meaning that single-parent mothers bring to their own lives, helping you to understand the dynamics of single-parent families from a uniquely personal perspective. In Unbroken Homes you will witness the ways that these women: experience the ill effects of gender role socialization work to overcome stigma redefine ideals for family life and gender expectations balance responsibilities in and outside of their homes stretch finances to meet the needs of their families regain strength and self-confidence encourage their children's development affirm the strength of their families cope with depression develop networks of support This intensely personal collection of women's stories and reflections is a must read for everyone who seeks a better understanding of divorce, single-parenting, and being alone, from an insider's perspective.

Download or read book Chicken Soup for the Single Parent s Soul written by Jack Canfield and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every single parent has a different story to tell, but a common thread of hope and comfort unites them all.

Download or read book In Defense of Single Parent Families written by Nancy E Dowd and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999-05-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Single-parent families succeed. Within these families children thrive, develop, and grow, just as they do in a variety of family structures. Tragically, they must do so in the face of powerful legal and social stigma that works to undermine them. As Nancy E. Dowd argues in this bold and original book, the justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families are founded largely on myths, myths used to rationalize harshly punitive social policies. Children, in increasing numbers, bear the brunt of those policies. In this generation, more than two-thirds of all children will spend some time in a single-parent family before reaching age 18. The damage done in the name of justified stigma, therefore, harms a great many children. Dowd details the primary justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families, marshalling an impressive array of resources about single parents that portray a very different picture of these families. She describes them in all their forms, with particular attention to the differential treatment given never-married and divorced single parents, and to the impact of gender, race, and class. Emphasizing that all families face significant conflicts between work and family responsibilities, Dowd argues many two-parent families, in fact, function as single-parent caregiving households. The success or failure of families, she contends, has little to do with form. Many of the problems faced by single-parent families mirror problems faced by all families. Illustrating the harmful impact of current laws concerning divorce, welfare, and employment, Dowd makes a powerful case for centering policy around the welfare and equality of all children. A thought-provoking examination of the stereotypes, realities and possibilities of single-parent families, In Defense of Single-Parent Families asks us to consider the true purpose or goal of a family.