I Am Not Your Baby Mother

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Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781529406252

Price: £22.99

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It’s about time we made motherhood more diverse…

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.

(P)2020 Quercus Editions Limited

Reviews

A powerful challenge to narrow mainstream depictions of motherhood ... this is a book that will undoubtedly change the way we talk about motherhood in the UK
Lighthouse Books
Important and necessary
i news
Blogger Candice Brathwaite is known for her beautifully constructed and refreshingly straight-talking Instagram captions, so we can't wait to read her urgent part-memoir, part-manifesto about black motherhood
Red magazine
Written in her brilliantly witty manner, this book is every black British woman's motherhood manual
Refinery 29
Humorous but unflinching, every mother, everywhere, should read this book
OK Magazine
This book is about so much more than paid partnerships and a square-by-square existence. It is an energetic decimation of the narrow, middle-class white lens through which we culturally speak about motherhood; a humorous and sensitive navigation of the nuances within race (Candice, as a black British woman and her husband, as a Nigerian man); and a searing commentary, through the motif of a Bugaboo pushchair, on how class and race intersect. I gobbled it in one weekend and encourage everyone - mother, or otherwise - to do the same.
Pandora Sykes
She's the straight-talking social-media star who hates the word 'influencer', refuses to 'dress small' and is on a mission to portray a vision of motherhood inclusive of race and class
Stella Magazine
Searing
Dolly Alderton
Remarkable
Lorraine Kelly
One of 2020's must-reads for all mums, new or experienced
Culture Whisper
An observant and timely guide
Evening Standard
I absolutely loved I Am Not Your Baby Mother
Giovanna Fletcher
A brilliantly observed look at life as a black mother
Closer
Brilliant
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Packed with insight for all women, whatever your race or parental status
Women’s Health Magazine
The must-read book of the summer
Mother and Baby Magazine
Brilliant ... as much an astoundingly good read as it is an essential one
Good Housekeeping
A game-changing guide to Black motherhood
Red magazine
To call Candice Brathwaite a mummy-blogger is to underplay the ground-breaking role she has played in challenging the white-washed, breton-striped representations of motherhood we see in the media and on Instagram.
Elizabeth Morris, Crib Notes
Really good ... accessible, sometimes shocking, honest, and feels written from the heart
Bernardine Evaristo
Thought-provoking
Grazia
An essential exploration of the realities of black motherhood in the UK
Observer
An enormously important book about motherhood and systemic racism [...] compellingly written, it's alive with a fury it is impossible not to feel when reading
Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
This book is needed for the voiceless
Nadiya Hussain
Frank and funny
the Scotsman