Two of Us Make a World: the Single Mother's Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year

Addresses the special needs of single mothers and mothers-to-be

Presenting their material calmly, clearly and compassionately, the sisters Tippins, who are single mothers, extend supportive, family-like encouragement to their readers. Their approach is organized in four parts, covering each trimester of pregnancy and the baby's first year. The sections include chapters on physical and emotional well-being, relationships with the baby's father (consistently portrayed as frustrating), finding community support groups and resources, financial concerns--ranging from finding affordable housing to collecting welfare and child support--and workplace issues. While broadly informative (on everything from co-parenting agreements, alternative work schedules and even a list of famous single mothers in fiction), this quietly inspirational volume never oversimplifies the challenge of single motherhood but makes the prospect seem less daunting. Anne Lamott's (Operating Instructions) Foreword is itself almost worth the price of the book.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

With more than nine million American women raising children alone by choice or out of necessity, it is surprising that most books on pregnancy and parenting still assume that the two-parent family is the norm. These two manuals written by single mothers offer useful, practical advice for women raising children alone. They include information on medical care, financial management, legal matters, career planning, social life, support networks, and dealing with family members. The Tippinses' book deals only with pregnancy and the baby's first year. It is organized chronologically by pregnancy trimester so that women can be prepared for the child's arrival. It includes sample agreements for women using sperm donors and co-parenting agreements, as well as a bibliography and resource list. The budget-planning advice is excellent. Engber and Klungness, writing in the tone of self-help books, cover the same topics, but they place more emphasis on the mother's self-esteem and other psychosocial issues. They also include child-development and parenting information about older children as well as a bibliography and resource list. Both books are more comprehensive than Jane Mattes's Single Mother by Choice (Times Bks., 1994) and Caryl Walker Kruger's Single with Children (Abingdon, 1993). They are highly recommended for all parenting collections.?Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.