Mother Nature

Mother Nature completely changed the way I think about motherhood. As a mother of 4 kids, I am consumed both by my maternal responsibilities and with guilt for not meeting those responsibilities perfectly.

In this paradigm-shifting book, Hrdy takes her readers on a journey through human history and the animal world to reveal a different view of motherhood than the one mothers are conditioned to have—that mothers should sacrifice everything for their children.

Hrdy uses evolutionary theory, experimental evidence, and examples from nature to show how mammalian and primate mothers evolved to skillfully deal with the competing demands of survival… show more.

Yes, it’s a tome, but man, is it a good one. In this influential book about women’s role in evolution, the lauded evolutionary theorist explicates how critical it was to the human species that we were cooperative breeders—meaning, in so many words, that it takes a village. Grandparents helped, aunts and uncles helped, way back when we were hunter-gatherers, and that kind of communal child rearing is deep in our blood. Understanding these roots puts into relief just how backwards we are, in modern society, when we expect nuclear families to shoulder everything on their own. 

Hrdy, a genius, is a renowned anthropologist and lyrical, powerful writer who, in this scholarly (150 pages of notes!) but compulsively readable book, tells us a lot of things we’ve never really wanted to acknowledge about motherly ambivalence throughout the animal world and certainly including humans. She is particularly wry and revealing about the biochemistry of motherhood, and how pregnancy, labor, and delivery all alter a mother’s brain.