10 Books on Mary + Motherhood Every Catholic Feminist Should Read
Part of our bookish series! 📚
I hate parenting books.
When I was a brand new mom, I found myself flocking to the parenting section of the library. A special form of self torture? An existential crisis? A heaping pile of new-mom guilt with a dash of Catholic guilt? Who knows! But I soon learned that most parenting books belong in the garbage disposal.
Parenting books follow a very specific formula:
A big, scary problem (Most kids spend 7 hours a day on an iPad!)
The author’s Big Solution (…then I discovered my Certified Sleep RhythmTM!)
Practical tips (Hire an Italian chef to move into your mother-in-law suite!)
They’re bowls of guilt soup force-fed to us in a time when the last thing we need is more guilt and shame. They’re also all in disagreement with one another. One book insists sleep training is the only way you’ll ever rest again, another says sleep training will traumatize your children for life. One book says your kids should be able to work a MacBook by kindergarten, another says a Smart Board in their classroom will permanently ruin their creativity. You get the picture.
So when I say books on motherhood, I mean books on the divine of mothering: books on what it means to be a mother, and how to better align our mothering with Christ. NOT how-to books by “parenting experts”. (Lol. Can you imagine claiming to be a parenting expert? Like literally calling yourself that? 😵💫) I will fess up that there are two books on this list I’d consider “parenting books” but I promise that they’re more memoir-style and don’t leave you feeling like crap. You may not like them, agree with them, or want to implement their suggested principles, but you won’t throw them into a furnace. Probably.
I also wanted to include books on our ultimate parent role model: Mama Mary. Because if there’s anyone we can look to as a mom-life role model, it’s her.
As a reminder, I’m not going to use affiliate links on these bookish posts because I think the best way to support the literary world is to purchase from your own local, independent bookstore. ThriftBooks or the library are other great options! If you prefer audiobooks, Libro.fm connects with your local indie and has great prices.
With that being said, here are 10 Books on Mary and Motherhood Every Catholic Feminist Should Read, According to Exactly One Catholic Feminist (ie., me).