Mothers through the years – inspirations and abominations

When I’m wide awake pondering my parenting skills, I’ve got a new handbook to remind me that whatever I’m doing, it could be worse. All in helpful bite-size chunks too. Not the latest guide from one of the many baby gurus out there, but new book Mothers In Fiction, a very fun look at some of literature’s most famous mums.

Covering ‘the marvellous, the mean and everything in between’, by Carrie Dunn, it’s got everyone from Pride & Prejudice’s Mrs Bennett and Little Women’s Marmee, to Adrian Mole’s mother, Scarlett O’Hara and a few other characters I remember fondly from my favourite children’s books.

And whether you’ve read the whole set or not, it’s a quirky way to revisit some classics and more modern reads from a slightly different viewpoint – who normally pays much attention to Capulet’s wife in Romeo & Juliet or Mrs Reed in Jane Eyre after all?

It’s also a reminder of just how much things have changed for women and mothers in only a generation – not least how much greater our options are today.

Best of all, as I have no plans to run a baby farm or choose a bigamous second marriage like a couple of the literary mothers mentioned, I should have a good head start on getting it right with my baby!

Image courtesy of Crooked Rib Publishing