Being pregnant with your first child while working in a bookshop means a danger of information overload. At least I didn't have to spend any of my precious funds on buying books about pregnancy, giving birth, parenting, the politics of parenting..., but I did pull copies off the shelves, which would later be bought by unsuspecting parents-to-be, and read through most of them between serving customers.
The books which interested me most, and which I remember still now, were the ones about the politics or realities of parenting in a wider context. Not just how many muslin cloths I might need to deal with a regularly 'posseting' (such a gentle term for such an indecorous activitiy) baby, but where I might find myself socially, econmically, politically, sociologically, after the 40 weeks of pregnancy were up. These were Susan Maushart's The Mask of Motherhood, Melissa Benn's Madonna and Child, Kate Fige's Life After Birth, and Becoming a Mother by Kate Mosse.
I don't think it's that common to take an interest in the politics of parenting before you've even given birth. I certainly don't think it's that common to read all the up to date commentators' opinions on the politics of parenting either, but there I was. It was manna to my critical mind.... until the baby arrived. At that point, your consciousness can be raised as much as you like, but if you're unconscious yourself having had four hours of sleep a night, feminist theories on the modern realities of parenting don't get a look in.
As the years went by and the children multiplied (only twice more) I kept reading. A period spent reviewing (recommending, really) books for the holistic parenting quarterly Juno meant I was able to read as much as I could consume on the topic of parenting, primarily from an 'alternative' perspective. I finally came to feel that this must constitute a considerable body of, if not knowledge, then words I have read. A list worth compiling, if only for my own gratification. A list on a blog seems like a good location; a step up from a written or printed list which would just float around on my desk (or rather gather dust in a drawer), and a bit more substantial than just a word document filed away forever.
Now I need to work out how to put together the list as a page on this blog...
