When Hope Edelman published Motherless Daughters about the long-term effects of early mother loss, the book touched a nerve in women across the country, and went on to become an enduring New York Times bestseller. Edelman, who was seventeen when her own mother died, told the collective story of mother loss with such candor, empathy, and informed wisdom that she quickly became a widely recognized expert on the topic.

But when she became a parent, she found herself revisiting her loss in ways she had never anticipated. Now the mother of two young girls, Edelman set out to learn how the loss of a mother to death or abandonment affects the ways women raise their own children. From her exhaustive investigation comes Motherless Mothers, the enlightening and inspiring next step in the motherless journey.

Using her own story as a prism, Edelman reveals the unique anxieties and desires these mothers experience as they raise their children without the help of a living maternal guide. She examines their parenting choices, their unexpected triumphs, and their fears, illuminating how the experience of loss directly impacts the ways in which these women parent their own children. This impeccably researched and luminously written book offers motherless mothers the guidance and support they want and need.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 9 reviews)

A support group without the actual group

I read Motherless Daughters shortly after losing my mom to cancer when I was 21. At the time, my sister was 10, and I was profoundly daunted by the responsibility of being both sister and mother to her, but also I was afraid that losing her mom so young would destroy her. That book helped me to see that we would both be ok, that we would always hurt, but the hurt might even make us stronger...which I think it has.

Fast forward 10 years to the birth of my son, which catapulted me into a whole other realm of joy, anxiety, AND grief: Joy, obviously, at this new wonder in my world; anxiety over whether I was prepared without a mom-model; grief that I would never see my own mom hold her grandson. I felt the absence of my mother in a deeper way than I ever had before. I had no one to ask "is this how I was when I was a baby?" and no one to call in the middle of the night to ask about fever or to laugh with about the diaper explosion. And I am always heartbroken that he will never know his grandmother.

Motherless Mothers helped me in the same was as Motherless Daughters, by showing me that my feelings were not unusual, and that many other women have become strong, successful mothers without having their own mothers to lean on. I like, too, that the book focuses a little bit more on parenting than on grieving. There is some good information about why I react as I do, which has been helpful in preparing me for some of the challenges as well as some of the unexpected joys. It gave me a little support group without the actual group, and I'm grateful for Hope Edelman's work.
July 07, 2008

A Must Read For Anyone Who Has Lost A Parent As A Child

In 1952, when I was nine-years-old, I took a phone message from Miller Hospital for my father. My life, as I knew it then, and for the future had changed. "Please tell your father that it is imperative that he come to the hospital as soon as he gets this message." At age 42, my mother had died.

The following spring, in the fourth grade, our Mother's Day classroom assignment was to write an essay entitled, "What My Mother Means To Me." Shyly I reminded my teacher that my mother had died a few months earlier. Within a heartbeat, she replied, "Well then, Steven, why don't you write, What My Mother Meant To Me." I bolted out of the classroom, sobbing, and ran to an empty home.

At 64 years old, I'm still learning how my mother's early death shaped my life. I wish Hope Edelman's How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become had been published years before. While the book is directed to women, which I'm not, I found innumerable common experiences.

I have two daughters, eight years apart in age. One lives 350 miles away; the other 1350 miles away. I speak by phone with each at least once a day. I can't go into a shop without thinking about what I'd like to buy and send to each of them. My wife and I visit them frequently and make certain that they have plane tickets to fly home for holidays and events. I know I've become my own idealized mother.

Long and short.......As a kid you lost your mother, read the book...buy it, borrow it, become a nuisance in a local bookstore that has a copy. It'll let you know those obsessive thoughts aren't just yours, alone.
November 06, 2007

A Must Have For ALL Motherless Mothers

This book is a must have for all Motherless Mothers. Motherless Mothers helped me realize that all the emotions I was having as a first mom where normal and I wasn't alone in my struggle. Thank you Hope!
May 21, 2007

The book your mom would give you...

...if she could.
Edelman's book should be required reading for any motherless mother. Her insights are startling. This book heals.
May 04, 2007

Truer words were never written b/4

Hope Edelman has a gift for writing the exact words I've been thinking since my Mother died of Breast Cancer at age 47, when I was 17. Mz. Edelman brings out all your emotions, one page after another. Hubby just shakes his head whenever I become engrosed in her book... He does not understand the Mother/Daughter bond... Hope helps me to understand and relive the love and joy of that now-missing bond!!!!
January 10, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, Second Edition
by Hope Edelman

Letters from Motherless Daughters: Words of Courage, Grief, and Healing
by Hope Edelman

A Mother Loss Workbook: Healing Exercises for Daughters
by Diane Hambrook

The Loss That Is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father
by Maxine Harris

Remembering Mother, Finding Myself: A Journey of Love and Self-Acceptance
by Patricia Commins