Blaming, shaming and flimsy evidence: Welcome to the ugly world of Good Mother myths
Out now!
Available from Verso Books and all good UK and US bookshops
Motherdom book tour
Foyles Charing Cross, London with Cathy Rentzenbrink: Tuesday 4 March, 7pm. Tickets
Bookhaus, Bristol: Monday 10 March, 6pm. Tickets
House of Books and Friends, Manchester: Tuesday 11 March, 6pm. Tickets
Golden Hare Books, Edinburgh: Wednesday 12 March, 6.30pm. Tickets
Dead Ink Books, Instagram Live with Dr Sophie Oliver: Tuesday 18 March, 1pm. Tickets
Topping & Company Booksellers, Bath: Thursday 20 March, 7pm. Tickets
Blackwells, Oxford: Thursday 10 April, 5.30pm. Tickets
Housman, London: 14 May. Details to follow
“ I have written Motherdom because I am completely and utterly fed up with all the guilt-inducing garbage which is peddled about motherhood.”
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.
Praise for Motherdom
A fantastically accessible debunking of myths around motherhood. An invigorating, empowering and life changing read.
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Ordinary Time
It is no secret that one of the least tolerable aspects of motherhood is other people’s expert advice ... [Motherdom] bravely hack[s] away at this ever-burgeoning thicket of good counsel ... explain[ing] how hoary, old, nature-versus-nurture cliches have stuck mothers in a place where they can do no right.
New Scientist, Best Popular Science Books of 2025
The specter of the Bad Mother looms over every bleary-eyed and terrified new mom. In this book, researcher and mother Alex Bollen digs into the real stories behind the nebulous studies and perceptions that shape societal notions about motherhood. She also proposes a new model of motherhood, “motherdom,” with which she aims to expand our conception of “good” child-rearing. I can think of countless people, mothers and not, in desperate need of this book.
Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Alex Bollen provides a meticulously researched critique of the evidence underpinning common parenting advice by exploring the history and science of motherhood and exposing the myths and pseudoscience that contribute to maternal anxiety and guilt across cultures. This powerful book will resonate with anyone who is navigating, or has navigated, the complexities of parenthood.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and author of Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain
This transgressive and transformative book not only decisively and incisively takes on the oppressive institution of patriarchal motherhood to dismantle the good mother myths and bad science that underpin it, it also bequeaths to us a new and revolutionary way to live motherhood. Indeed, with her innovative and vital model of Motherdom, Alex Bollen has created for us a theory and practice of motherhood that will 'set mothers free' to realize the emancipatory potential of motherhood.
Dr. Andrea O’Reilly, founder of motherhood studies, maternal theory, and matricentric feminism and author of In (M)otherwords: Writings on Mothering and Motherhood
This passionately written and impeccably evidenced book reminds us of the myriad ways in which mothers are blamed - for pretty much everything. Motherdom, as the author sets out, ‘means setting mothers free’ and freedom from judgement and guilt and especially ‘experts’ is so long overdue, it is hard to imagine. But this highly readable book, makes it feel a possibility.
Professor Tina Miller. Oxford Brookes University, Author of Motherhood: Contemporary Experiences and Generational Change
Bollen’s excellent and much-needed book brilliantly exposes the flimsy foundations of the supposedly scientific evidence underpinning much of the received wisdom about motherhood.
Dr Kim Thomas, CEO of the Birth Trauma Association
Such a welcome contribution to the raging debates that surround contemporary parenting. Bollen takes a forensic look at the evidence used to promote particular parenting practices and shows how shaky much of the 'brain-boosting' science it rests on really is. In its place, she proposes a new way of understanding and supporting motherhood; an intersectionally informed, non-didactic appreciation of the diversity in maternal experiences, that is deeply social at heart: Motherdom.
Dr Charlotte Faircloth, Associate Professor, UCL Social Research Institute
In this passionate and persuasive book, Alex Bollen tells the story of how bad science has affected generations of mothers. This is essential reading for anyone interested in how research should – and shouldn’t – be used.'
Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos
A refreshing and smart voice in the never-ending "mommy wars," Alex Bollen critiques much of the mothering advice – scientific and cultural – that has produced maternal guilt, fear, and anxiety. Instead, Bollen calls us to a vision of motherdom that centers maternal freedom, and that recognizes that experiences of motherhood and practices of nurturing are varied and individual.
Jennifer C. Nash, Jean Fox O’Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University and author of Birthing Black Mothers
Many women who've been told that their interactions with their baby can dramatically help or hinder wiring of the brain will be astounded to see just how flimsy the scientific basis is for those claims. Overall, this will be a liberating read for mothers who will find Bollen's accessible and authoritative style a mine of useful information, and a counterpoint to the flood of neurobabble that pervades popular accounts of mother-child interactions.
Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology, University of Oxford
A well-informed and sanity-restoring book.
Eliane Glaser, author of Motherhood: Feminism’s Unfinished Business