Audio Book Club

Elissa Strauss always knew she wanted to be a mother, but she also knew she didn’t want motherhood to take over her personality. After all, she had spent years as a blogger making fun of anyone who took motherhood too seriously. She bemoaned the natural birth movement and people who made “mom friends.” Then Elissa had a son, and her view of caretaking started to shift. “I had put so much energy into figuring out how not to lose myself to caregiving,” Elissa writes in her new book, “that I completely ignored the possibility that I might, in fact, find some of myself there.” In this episode, Anna and Elissa talk about why it feels uncool to talk about liking motherhood, the ways caretaking can take from us, but also how it can fill us up and engender “moral transformation.” Plus, the economics of care, and what really valuing care in society would look like.  Elissa’s book is called When You Care: the Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. She also wrote a piece last month in Slate called “It’s Weird Times to B