If Only I Were a Better Mother

by Melissa Gayle West

A guide to motherhood as a spiritual path offers mothers a safe place in which to honor all their feelings and needs, teaching them how to understand the "dark side" of mothering--the anger, fear, grief, despair, and guilt. Original.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish that this were the only book I had read on becoming a mother, because I might have saved myself a lot of torment. Melissa Gayle West turns motherhood inside out, reveals the damaging effect of the idealized "Good Mother" image that our society projects, and gives all mothers at all stages of life permission to acknowledge the Dark Mother within, dance with her, and experience growth from the darkness. Calling on images of ancient goddesses--dark warrior goddesses, black mothers, wild women of death and rebirth--West shows that purity and light are only a part of the spiritual journey into motherhood. To pursue light at all costs is not even healthy. We need the darkness. We need to confront it, see what lingers in the shadows, and learn from it.

I love this book. I love it's message. I see myself flayed open on every page as West details her own early days as a mother. Raw, powerful, and honest, West provides the sort of hope that has eluded me since my baby was born over a year ago. If you're about to be a mother throw out every other book on your reading list and get this one instead. If you're already a mother who succumbed to too much reading and are now full of despair at the impossibility of ever being a "Good Mother," forget everything you have read until now, read this book, and reclaim yourself as the real, gritty, true mother that you are.