Summary of Chelsea Conaboy's Mother Brain

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The first time I tried to answer the question What does it mean to become a mother. it involved pumping two or so ounces of breast milk that would become just one of the two bottles I needed to feed my infant at day care the following day. I sat in that closet and pumped and pumped, and when the milk didn’t come, I sat in that closet and pumped some more, until I was so frustrated that my back hurt and my breasts felt like they were going to explode. And still the milk wouldn’t come. I was desperate. I wanted to know what it means to become a mother, but I couldn’t get an answer. Still unable to produce enough milk for my baby, I went back to work. I needed more information, but more information was not coming. I was four months postpartum—the time of most intense lactation—and this still wasn’t enough milk. How long would this take. -> What does it mean to become a mother. For many women, the answer is scary because it means examining how they are different from nonmothers, and from a male perspective, how much less interesting they are.

#2 This is not a parenting book. I have two kids, and I have written a book describing my experience as a new parent. I am not a parenting expert.

#3 This book will not give you advice on how to raise your child or how to be a parent. It will instead explore the biological changes and lived experience that makes parenthood so profound.

#4 The idea that we are the dedicated mother bird, guided by a maternal instinct that has been perfected through the ages, is bullshit. We are not naturally caring for our children. We are not born with the ability to do so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Sep 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350031072

IRB Media

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Insights on Chelsea Conaboy's Mother Brain

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

What does it mean to become a mother. For many women, the answer is too dangerous to consider. We are constantly being told what our behavior means for our children’s developing bodies and their lifelong physical and mental health, but we rarely learn about how parenthood changes us.

#2

I wanted to understand what I was experiencing as an anxious new mother. I was sure there was more going on in my brain than what I had learned over the months when I was reading books and taking classes that claimed to prepare me for this time.

#3

The mother brain is not synonymous with the female brain, but rather the brain that is earned by care. It is the one engaged in the life-supporting practice of mothering, which is older than feminism.

#4

The story of maternal instinct is that we are the dedicated mother bird, the story says, and that we naturally care for and protect our offspring. But when we have our own babies, we realize that maternal instinct isn’t something that just happens.

#5

Owolabi Mitchell was prepared for many possible outcomes with her daughter’s arrival. She was acutely aware of the fact that as a Black woman living in the United States, she was at a greater risk than a White expectant mother of suffering complications during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

#6

The author’s expectations of motherhood did not match reality, and she felt overwhelmed even in the early weeks. She didn’t feel like the parent her son deserved or the nurturing mother she had been told she would be.

#7

I had stepped into a new reality in which everything seemed off-center. I was an outlier, and the maternal instinct that was supposed to provide me with balance was broken.

#8

The brain changes dramatically during pregnancy and childbirth, and it is now known that new parents are physically and mentally changed by their experience.

#9

The parental brain is changed by having a child, and it is not a