The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life

Writing from her dual perspective as psychologist and mother, Dr. Harriet Lerner puts the spotlight on how a woman is changed when she becomes a mother. Enlivened with personal tales and vivid case examples that run the gamut from hilarious to the heart-wrenching, "The Mother Dance" spells out what happens to a woman when two become three... and four. We see why her new life is so different from his-- and how children inevitably help us to discover things about ourselves and our partners that we would otherwise not know. Lerner shows us how kids call on us to grow up and are the best teachers of life's most profound spiritual lessons.

From birth to the empty nest, Lerner's own experience has taught her the basic lessons of motherhood: that we are not in control of what happens to our children; that most of what we worry about doesn't happen (though bad things happen that we fail to anticipate); and that our children will love us with all our imperfections if we can do the same for them.

Lerner helps us to distinguish what we can change (and how to do it), and when we need to surrender to the fact that our lives-- and our children's-- may not go as we expect or plan. With the insight, warmth and clarity that characterize all of Lerner's work, here is a gloriously witty and moving book about what it means to dance the mother dance. "The Mother Dance" is one of the wisest and most honest books on parenting I have read. As a parent myself, I ate up story after story, insight after insight. This excellent book offers a reader pleasurable learning, an oxymoron in the world of education and professionalism, and it is deceptively simple. Within its fluid and engaging language lies solid psychological insight and analysis." --Thomas Moore, author of "Care of the Soul" and "The Soul of Sex"

"Harriet Lerner pioneers on behalf of women's whole humanity. Each chapter in "The Mother Dance" is worth the price of admission. --Gloria Steinem

"Here are the stories that your own mother might never have had the courage to tell you. Once you start reading you won't allow yourself to be interrupted from the unflinchingly honest revelations about the awesome power of being a mother. --Naomi Judd

""The Mother Dance" is the most reassuring, gutsy, and entertaining book about being a mother that I have ever read. A real tour de force! --Clare McHugh, Editor-in-chief, New Woman magazine

"I couldn't put this book down. It comes the closest I've ever seen to fully articulating the dilemmas, insecurities, and the many great joys of motherhood. --Betty Carter, author of "Love, Honor, and Negotiate"

"In The Mother Dance, there are no mistakes in parenting-- only learning experiences told with a great sense of humor." --Benjamin Spock, M.D.

"A popular psychotherapist writes with grace and striking candor about what it is like to be a mother. Entertaining and revealing. Lerner's committed readers will enjoy and perhaps be reconciled to their own parenting styles from this view of her as a mother who is sometimes irrational, sometimes wise, but who loves her children beyond words." --Kirkus Reviews

"Lerner is a serious writer with a gift for translating scholarly ideas into books that hit a nerve with lay audiences. "The Mother Dance" is an engaging account of her parenting experiences that will leave many mothers chuckling with recognition. Lerner's reassuring tone and intelligent advice make her book a useful addition to any parent's bookshelf. --San Francisco Chronicle

"Lerner provides a wealth of commonsense suggestions... and effectively communicates the ambivalent feelings that many women sometimes have toward their children, despite the joy they have find in motherhood." --Publishers Weekly