It's a difficult time to be a parent. Those of us who are parents or know parents understand the unique joys and challenges that come with parenthood. And in today's world, parents need all the encouragement they can get as they weather the highs and lows. The books below are specifically designed to support, encourage, and empower families. Scroll to explore books that will serve as invaluable guides on your journey to build stronger, happier, and more connected families.
Break the Cycles of Trauma
Every good parent wants to create relationships with their children that are filled with joy, connection, and healthy attachment. Yet well-meaning but traumatized parents—those who suffered as children or who are dealing with traumatic events as adults—tend to see the world from a survival point of view. Post-Traumatic Parenting goes far beyond the fad social-media trends like "gentle" and "responsive" parenting to provide a clear, easy-to-follow, and substantive guide, helping you break the cycle, enjoy the journey, and create healthy, joyful, dynamic, lasting relationships with your children.
Learn How to Be Busy Well
How nice it would be to clear the calendar—to just stop doing so much stuff. Except kids get sick and the work project awaits and elderly relatives need care. No matter how well you hack it, manage it, slice or dice or delegate it: in some seasons of life, busyness is a given. The solution, writes Rachelle Crawford, is not to merely declutter your calendar or unsubscribe from the busy life. The trick lies in learning how to be busy. How to Be Busy is a lighthearted, practical guide for how to live your deep, meaningful, unhurried life—right in the middle of your busy one.
Learn from Nature's Mothers
What does it mean to be a mother in an era of climate catastrophe? In prose that teems with longing, lyricism, and knowledge of ecology, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder writes of the silent flight and aural maps of barn owls, of nursing whales, of real and imagined forests, of tidal marshes, of ancient single-celled organisms, and of newly planted gardens. The creatures inhabiting these stories teach us about centering, belonging, entanglement, edgework, homemaking, and how to imagine the future. Rooted in wonder while never shying away from loss, Mother, Creature, Kin reaches toward a language of inclusive care learned from creatures living at the brink.
Grapple with Parenting in the Age of Climate Collapse
We are living in an era of climate collapse, and climate anxiety touches nearly everything we do—including our parenting. This Sweet Earth wrestles with our questions and fears and dares to argue that while the future remains unknown, there is still awe and wonder, love and struggle, gratitude and joy to be found. As we raise our children toward this uncertain future, Lydia Wylie-Kellermann helps us see that those same children shift our posture, slow us down, and invite us to fall in love with the ground on which we stand.
Appreciate the Small Moments of Parenthood
Ordinary Blessings for Parents
Those of us who care for children know how hard and heroic caring for young people can be. But when we're caught up in the day-to-day challenges of raising children, we can easily miss the sanctity of these moments. Gifted poet, empathetic pastor, and mom of three Meta Herrick Carlson names the moments we take for granted or that make us second-guess ourselves. Ordinary Blessings for Parents includes blessings for washing bottles, for belly laughs, for the death of a beloved adult, and for the legacy we want to pass on.
Celebrate the Creative Power of Women
Few women artists feature prominently in the history of art, and even fewer who are mothers. Are motherhood and creativity at odds, or are other factors at play? The Mother Artist twines intimate meditations on motherhood with portraits of the work, lives, and studios of mother artists, placing us in the company of women from the past and the present who persevere in both art and caregiving.
Support and Celebrate Gender-Diverse Children
Raising Kids beyond the Binary
The debate around transgender children rages, with some Christians being the loudest voices against supporting these young people. So, now more than ever, people of faith need to be grounded in God's call to love and affirm young people in who God created them to be. Drawing on the author's experience as the mother of a transgender child and her years of advocacy work, Raising Kids beyond the Binary helps Christian parents navigate the emotional, spiritual, and logistical landscape of raising a gender-diverse child. It paints a picture of who transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people are and what they need to thrive.
Embrace the Queerness of Your Family
Nia Chiaramonte, Katie J. Chiaramonte
When Nia Chiaramonte came out as a trans woman to her wife Katie, she knew she would be met with a loving response. But she was less sure what would happen when they began to bring their community alongside them on their journey of identity formation as a Queer family. Embracing Queer Family is a guidebook with tools for learning and reflection for Queer families on how to live into your true selves and strengthen your communities through radical love, acceptance, and mutual healing.
Cultivate Justice Practices in Our Families
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann (editor)
It is a complex time to be a parent. Our climate is in crisis, economic inequality is deepening, and violence is escalating. How can parents cultivate in their children a love of the earth, a cry for justice, and a commitment to nonviolence? Written by parents who are also writers, teachers, organizers, artists, gardeners, and activists, The Sandbox Revolution offers a diversity of voices and experiences to guide us on a journey of justice-focused parenting.
Evaluate the Relationship between Alcohol and Motherhood
Alcohol isn't going to fix the systemic lack of support for mothers. Mommy Wine Culture is a symptom of a larger issue: the mental load of motherhood and a systemic lack of support for moms. Mixing research, cultural references, interviews, and the author's sobriety story, It's Not about the Wine reveals what's really plaguing mothers and offers tangible tips for evaluating your relationship to alcohol and lightening your load.
To view all of our books and resources, visit broadleafbooks.com.
