We’re delighted to be introducing a brand new feature to our blog called What We’re Reading! We are asking a member of the HQ team to highlight a book they are currently reading or have read recently and to share their opinion with us.
First up is Senior Marketing Manager, Jo Kite, who is currently loving I Am Not Your Baby Mother by Candice Brathwaite.
What’s it about?
When Candice fell pregnant and stepped into the motherhood playing field, she found her experience bore little resemblance to the glossy magazine photos of women in horizontal stripe tops and the pinned discussions on mumsnet about what pushchair to buy. Leafing through the piles of prenatal paraphernalia, she found herself wondering: “Where are all the black mothers?”.
Candice started blogging about motherhood in 2016 after making the simple but powerful observation that the way motherhood is portrayed in the British media is wholly unrepresentative of our society at large.
The result is this thought-provoking, urgent and inspirational guide to life as a black mother. It explores the various stages in between pregnancy and waving your child off at the gates of primary school, while facing hurdles such as white privilege, racial micro-aggression and unconscious bias at every point. Candice does so with her trademark sense of humour and refreshing straight-talking, and the result is a call-to-arms that will allow mums like her to take control, scrapping the parenting rulebook to mother their own way.
What did Jo think?
“I was drawn to this book for many reasons – firstly, I am a huge non-fiction fan and love reading about people’s first hand accounts and learning more from their lives. Secondly, Candice is everywhere at the moment and rightly so. I heard about this book on Annie Mac’s Podcast, Changes. I wanted to hear more from Candice. And thirdly, being a mum myself, and following lots of mummy bloggers and IGers, I love reading books about motherhood. I was shocked to hear that this is the first book about motherhood from a British black woman and I felt it was so important to read it.”
If you liked this, we think you’ll love:
A Woman of Firsts by Edna Adan Ismail
Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl at the bidding of her mother, Edna’s determination was set.
The first midwife to practise in Somaliland, Edna became a formidable teacher and campaigner for women’s health. As her country was swept up in its bloody fight for independence, Edna rose to become its First Lady and first female cabinet minister.
She built her own hospital, brick by brick, training future generations in what has been hailed as one of the Horn of Africa’s finest university hospitals. This is Edna’s truly remarkable story.
