Motherdom Event with Alex Bollen - Wednesday 12th March 2025

Join us in the bookshop to celebrate the launch of Motherdom: Breaking free From Bad Science and Good Mother Myths. Alex Bollen will talk about her work and her new book, and take audience questions.

6.30pm on Wednesday 12th March 2025 at Golden Hare Books, EH3 5AQ.

Buy a copy of Motherdom and receive free entry to the event, or choose our Ticket-Only option for £5 (which can be used towards a purchase of the book at the event).

About Motherdom - When Alex Bollen had her first baby, the fear of being a bad mother made her guilty and anxious about being a bad mother. A researcher with twenty years' experience, she went looking for answers. To her surprise the studies she looked at were exaggerated and misrepresented in the media, forming the foundation for what she calls Good Mother myths

These myths are an assortment of narratives, ideologies and stereotypes, deployed to censure mothers and blame them for every societal ill. Incensed by the way bad science is used to shame mothers, Alex Bollen decided to set the record straight. With meticulous research and keen insight, Motherdom exposes both the shaky science and unjustified prescriptions about how mothers should 'naturally' behave.

Competing visions of birth - 'natural' versus 'medical' - mean women can be criticised whatever happens, raising the odds that birth will be a damaging, even deadly, experience. Mothers are judged and belittled whether they breast- or bottle-feed their babies. Bogus claims about brain development and dodgy attachment theories mean that whatever mothers do, it is never enough.

This has to stop. We must replace Good Mother myths with a realistic approach to parenting. Alex Bollen proposes 'motherdom', a more expansive conception of motherhood, which values and respects the different ways people raise their children.

Instead of finding fault with mothers, motherdom shifts our focus to the relationships and resources children need to flourish.

About Alex Bollen -  Alex Bollen is a researcher with over twenty years of experience, including as a former director of the research agency Ipsos MORI. She is a Postnatal Practitioner with the NCT, the UK’s largest parenting charity, and has been running postnatal groups for new mothers in South West London for over a decade. She is the mother of two children.