An inspirational guide to life as a black mother from the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse, I Am Not Your Baby Mother is a brilliantly observant and timely book about the problematically homogenous portrayal of maternity in British media.
It's about time we made motherhood more diverse...
When Candice fell pregnant and stepped into the motherhood playing field, she found her experience bore little resemblance to the glossy magazine photos of women in horizontal stripe tops and the pinned discussions on mumsnet about what pushchair to buy. Leafing through the piles of prenatal paraphernalia, she found herself wondering: "Where are all the black mothers?".
Candice started blogging about motherhood in 2016 after making the simple but powerful observation that the way motherhood is portrayed in the British media is wholly unrepresentative of our society at large.
The result is this thought-provoking, urgent and inspirational guide to life as a black mother. It explores the various stages in between pregnancy and waving your child off at the gates of primary school, while facing hurdles such as white privilege, racial micro-aggression and unconscious bias at every point. Candice does so with her trademark sense of humour and refreshing straight-talking, and the result is a call-to-arms that will allow mums like her to take control, scrapping the parenting rulebook to mother their own way.
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
ISBN: 9781529406283
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 169 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 20 mm
An essential exploration of the realities of black motherhood in the UK - Observer
Blogger Candice Brathwaite is known for her beautifully constructed and refreshingly straight-talking Instagram captions, so we can't wait to read her urgent part-memoir, part-manifesto about black motherhood - Red magazine
This book is about so much more than paid partnerships and a square-by-square existence. It is an energetic decimation of the narrow, middle-class white lens through which we culturally speak about motherhood; a humorous and sensitive navigation of the nuances within race (Candice, as a black British woman and her husband, as a Nigerian man); and a searing commentary, through the motif of a Bugaboo pushchair, on how class and race intersect. I gobbled it in one weekend and encourage everyone - mother, or otherwise - to do the same. - Pandora Sykes
Written in her brilliantly witty manner, this book is every black British woman's motherhood manual - Refinery 29
Humorous but unflinching, every mother, everywhere, should read this book - OK Magazine
She's the straight-talking social-media star who hates the word 'influencer', refuses to 'dress small' and is on a mission to portray a vision of motherhood inclusive of race and class - Stella Magazine
Searing - Dolly Alderton
Remarkable - Lorraine Kelly
One of 2020's must-reads for all mums, new or experienced - Culture Whisper
An observant and timely guide - Evening Standard
A powerful challenge to narrow mainstream depictions of motherhood ... this is a book that will undoubtedly change the way we talk about motherhood in the UK - Lighthouse Books
Important and necessary - i news
I absolutely loved I Am Not Your Baby Mother - Giovanna Fletcher
A brilliantly observed look at life as a black mother - Closer
Brilliant - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Packed with insight for all women, whatever your race or parental status - Women’s Health Magazine
The must-read book of the summer - Mother and Baby Magazine
Brilliant ... as much an astoundingly good read as it is an essential one - Good Housekeeping
A game-changing guide to Black motherhood - Red magazine
To call Candice Brathwaite a mummy-blogger is to underplay the ground-breaking role she has played in challenging the white-washed, breton-striped representations of motherhood we see in the media and on Instagram. - Elizabeth Morris, Crib Notes
Really good ... accessible, sometimes shocking, honest, and feels written from the heart - Bernardine Evaristo
Thought-provoking - Grazia
An enormously important book about motherhood and systemic racism [...] compellingly written, it's alive with a fury it is impossible not to feel when reading - Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
This book is needed for the voiceless - Nadiya Hussain
Frank and funny - the Scotsman
Such a funny, thoughtful book. A book I didn’t even know I needed to read. I don’t tend to read mummy bloggers books because, quite simply, they aren’t very interesting to me anymore and follow pretty similar paths.... More
I loved this from Candice Brathwaite - what a writer! An urgent, important, vital read. I can't wait to read what she writes next.
This book is much needed. For mothers, fathers, grandparents and all of us without children too. I took a hundred notes from it. Joyous, funny, from the heart and heartbreaking too.
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