How bad does it have to be for a mother to leave? It would have been easy to say that Kay O'Gorman just continued the cycle of her own neglect and abandonment, but she thought that too easy an excuse. It would have been easy to place the blame on her own traumatic childhood, on the early death of her mother, on her domineering but charismatic father. To escape this background, she married early but, like many such marriages, it was not a happy union. She hoped that children would change things, but they did not. Her circumstances grew ever more desperate. Kay fled. She formed a new relationship, but her sense of guilt at having abandoned her children oppressed her to the point that she herself developed problems with alcohol. It took a long time, but finally she sorted out her life. In Where's Your Mama Gone? she writes with unflinching truth about her past and the motivations for her actions. It recalls an Ireland of casual cruelty, all-powerful authority figures, sexual ignorance and non-existent choice.

One would assume that a woman with a seventh-grade education, eight children to raise, and no money is considered a failure. Wrong! Not for this woman who was born in the Deep South in the 1920s. Instead, she used her situation as a ladder, setting goals and stepping over obstacles to successfully break free from the clutches of poverty. Staring poverty in the face and cleaning huge homes of affluent white people for miniscule wages to take care of eight children, Odessa B. Toyer demonstrated how one woman of tenacious character and totally dependent on God beat the odds to rear a family that would make her proud and give back to enhance her quality of life. She did it all without handouts and taught her children to do the same. Out of her poverty came many and varied life lessons that live on through her offspring. Decades later after all of her children were grown, it was shocking to see this strong woman forget the meal she had eaten fifteen minutes earlier, put keys in the refrigerator, or wander away from home to become a victim of the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. Once diagnosed, Odessa would fight the disease, and in the end, she strong-armed Alzheimer's by refusing to forget her children. When she died in 2008, we had no idea we would see Alzheimer's again. The monster was still lurking and would ultimately claim Odessa's oldest daughter. Where's Mama goes against the stereotypical finger-pointing of poverty-stricken families. On the contrary, it will show that proper raising, not poverty or ethnicity, determines the successful outcome of children. This story is multifaceted with many twists, and it will show how Odessa's adult children chose serving over life's pleasures to give back to their mother and a sibling through caregiving that collectively spanned more than a decade. I am Odessa's daughter. I lived through poverty with her and my siblings. That's why I'm telling her story. I believe this book will help others who have a will to climb out of poverty; and people tasked with caring for elderly loved ones who are victims of Alzheimer's.

Winner of the 2022 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Life Writing Growing up in the Delta town of Yazoo City, Mississippi, Teresa Nicholas believed that she and her country-born and -bred mother weren’t close. She knew little of her mother’s early life as a sharecropper during the Great Depression, but whenever she brought up the subject, her taciturn mother would snap, “You ask too many questions, young’un.” Nicholas left Mississippi to attend college, then settled in New York to work in the hard-driving world of commercial book publishing. Twenty-five years later, eager for a change, she and her husband decided to shift careers to writing, trading their home in the New York suburbs for a casita in the Mexican Highlands. But as her mother’s health deteriorated, Nicholas found herself spending more time in the small town she thought she had left behind. Over long afternoons in front of Turner Classic Movies, she grew closer to her mother, coaxing stories from her about her hardscrabble past—until a major stroke threatened to silence her mother's newfound voice. Torn between her new home in Mexico and her old home in Mississippi, Nicholas struggled to find her place in the world. She discovered that the past isn’t always the way we remember it, and as the years ticked by, that she and her mother could grow closer still. The Mama Chronicles: A Memoir is a funny and poignant account of a mother-daughter relationship and, ultimately, a meditation on acceptance and what it means to call a place home.

Diane is a beautiful single mother who pulled herself out of the system by working hard so that her children could have everything she didn't. Now she's bitter and jealous, because the daughter she sacrificed twenty years of her youth for is prettier and more intelligent than she'll ever be and about to live the life Diane always dreamed of. Kendra's relationship with her mother takes an even harsher turn when she meets Deon, a handsome, streetwise entrepreneur. He is everything Kendra has ever dreamed of in a man. Now the only thing she has to do is keep her conniving mother as far away from him as possible.

A long-awaited, myth-busting, and deeply affecting memoir by the daughter of legendary rock star “Mama” Cass Elliot To the rest of the world, Cass Elliot was a rock star; A charismatic, wisecracking singer from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted band, The Mamas & The Papas; A legend of Laurel Canyon, decked out in her custom-made Muumuus, glittering designer jewelry, blessed with a powerful, instantly identifiable singing voice which helped define the sound of the 1960s counterculture movement. But to Owen Elliot-Kugell, she was just Mom. In the nearly 50 years since Cass Elliot’s untimely death at the age of 32, rumors and myths have swirled about, shading nearly every aspect of her life. In her long-awaited memoir, Owen Elliot-Kugell shares the groundbreaking story of her mom as only a daughter can tell it. In My Mama, Cass, Owen pulls back the curtains of her mother’s life from the sold-out theaters to behind the closed doors of her infamous California abode. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen, the woman who was known to the world as Cass Elliot was decades ahead of her time: an independently minded, outspoken woman who broke through a male-dominated business, a forward-thinking feminist, and a single parent who embraced motherhood from the moment Owen entered the world. From the closely guarded secret of Owen’s paternity to Cass’s lifelong struggles with self-esteem and weight, to rumors surrounding her mother’s death, Owen illuminates the complex truths of her mother’s life, sharing interviews with the high-profile figures who orbited Cass, as well as never-before-heard tales of her mother and this legendary period of American history. Featuring intimate family and archival photos as well as interviews and memories from famous friends, fans, and colleagues who loved and respected Cass, this book is both a love story and a mystery, a tale of self-discovery and a daughter’s devotion. At its core, My Mama, Cass is a beautifully crafted testament befitting of Cass Elliot’s enduring cultural impact and legacy, written by the person who knew and loved her best.

If Mamas Walls Could Talk is an inspiring memoir by the author as she endures and ultimately overcomes periods of misery and misfortune. Fe Michelle reflects on her lifeincluding her battle with two debilitating diseases and three husbandsand recalls conversations that took place in her mothers bedroom. Travel with her through riveting accounts of intensity, infidelity, abandonment, and addiction. Hear these secrets unfold the way Mamas walls would tell themif Mamas walls could talk.

A New York Times contributor offers a radical reexamination of a hot-button issue of the mother and son relationship and advocates the end of the "mama's boy" taboo. New York Times contributor Kate Stone Lombardi unveils the surprisingly close relationship between mothers and sons. Mother after mother confessed to Lombardi that her husband, brothers, and even female friends and family criticize the fact that she is "too close" to her sons. Many of these women are often startled by the strong connection they feel with their sons; but rarely do they talk about it because society tells them to push their little boys away and not "baby" them with too much cuddling and comforting. It is as if there were an existing playbook-based on gender preconceptions dating back to Freud, Oedipus, and beyond-that prescribes the way mothers and their sons should interact. Lombardi's much-needed narrative is the first and only book to share truly revealing interviews with mothers who have close relationships with their sons, as well as interviews with these women's sons and husbands. Lombardi persuasively argues that the rise of the new male-one who is more emotionally intelligent and more sensitive without being less "manly"-is directly attributable to women who are rejecting the "mama's boy" taboo. Highlighting new scientific studies, The Mama's Boy Myth begins a fresh story-one that will be welcomed by mothers, fathers, and sons alike.

Emotional support for those wishing to overcome an alcoholic mother's destructive influences and create a happy, fulfilled life.

A “beautifully written and self-revealing” memoir of motherhood—in all its messy glory—as a spiritual practice, by a longtime yoga and dharma teacher (Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance) Sutra is the Sanskrit name for a short spiritual teaching, and it comes from the same root as the English word suture, or stitch. This story of motherhood as a path to awakening is, says yoga and meditation teacher Anne Cushman, “an homage to the long threads that run through all human lives, stitching up what’s shredded in our hearts.” The Mama Sutra spans an eighteen-year journey through motherhood as a spiritual practice, chronicling Cushman’s first pregnancy, her daughter's tragic stillbirth, the joyful birth of her son, the “home retreat” of early motherhood, the challenges of parenthood, the diagnosis and gifts of her son’s developmental differences, the meltdown of her nuclear family and its reconfiguration into a new and joyful form, and more. This is a powerful story of the rawness and beauty of life.

In this searing and uplifting memoir, a young Black queer woman fresh out of college adopts her baby brother after their incarcerated mother dies, determined to create the kind of family she never had. Nikkya Hargrove spent a good portion of her childhood in prison visiting rooms. When her mother—addicted to cocaine and just out of prison—had a son and then died only a few months later, Nikkya was faced with an impossible choice. Although she had just graduated from college, she decided to fight for custody of her half brother, Jonathan. And fight she did. Nikkya vividly recounts how she is subjected to preconceived notions that she, a Black queer young woman, cannot be given such responsibility. Her honest portrayal of the shame she feels accepting food stamps, her family’s reaction to her coming out, and the joy she experiences when she meets the woman who will become her wife reveal her sheer determination. And whether she’s clashing with Jonathan’s biological father or battling for Jonathan’s education rights after he’s diagnosed with ADHD and autism, this is a woman who won’t give up. Nikkya’s moving story picks up where Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy left off, exploring generational trauma and pulling back the curtain on family court and poverty in America. Mama is an ode to motherhood and identity, and to finding strength in family and community, for readers of memoirs by Ashley C. Ford, Natasha Tretheway, and Dawn Turner.