Hot Flashes Warm Bottles : First-Time Mothers Over Forty

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable, informative, written with wonderful humor
Review: Ms London's book is a welcome addition to my bedside table. Its format fits my busy-mom reading habits, allowing me to read in snippets as time (and my child's demands) allows. Its rich anecdotes and revealing stories shared by so many over-40 moms are comforting and informative and do much to dispel my guilt for not always being the contented mom. For those of us who do not have a close community of kindred spirit over-40 mothers, "Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles" offers shared experience that brings perspective and validity to this amazing later-life parenting experience. I am not alone!

Rating:
Summary: Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles: First-time Mothers Over Forty
Review: This timely and much-needed book is extremely well-written, filled with substance, information, humor and heart. The women's stories shared in its pages bring alive, in a very personal way, themes and emotions with which any first-time "older" mom - straight or gay - will be able to identify. These stories, coupled with the suggested exercises at the end of each chapter, are good tools for helping the reader better able to understand, articulate and clarify her own experience and feel connected and less alone. The resource guides at the end are filled with good leads. I like that the book speaks to very real difficulties as well as more obvious joys - especially what happens as hormones begin to diminish as we approach menopause with young children in tow. Even though motherhood is as old as the human species, we don't have older generations of women to turn to for guidance in this department. We are breaking new ground here socially and personally. This book offers words of advice, comfort, laughter, beauty and sisterhood, both for women who are already parenting and for those who are thinking about diving into the experience. I think it also might help the friends and/or male partners of hormone-flagging moms gain some compassionate insight. I am enthusiastically suggesting this book to friends, family and my counseling clients. I am grateful that finally there is such a nurturing, down-to-earth and readable book to recommend.