The Working Mom Blueprint

May 3, 2021
Pediatrician Casares (The New Baby Blueprint) encourages working mothers to identify their priorities and align their lives accordingly in this upbeat and practical guide. “There is joy waiting for us as we mother, not in spite of our work but alongside it,” she writes, and urges readers to ditch the guilt, cultural expectations, and perfectionism that plague modern parenthood. Casares guides readers through creating a self-care routine (which she posits is critical for working moms), touts the value of modeling resilience to children, and gives tips for finding childcare and putting dinner on the table night after night. A chapter on how to successfully share parenting responsibilities with a partner is especially useful: she encourages couples to divide tasks based on strengths and weaknesses, not to expect a partner to do a job “how you would do it,” and to keep in mind common goals. Anecdotes are mixed in seamlessly with advice (“A few summers back, I had the ultimate self-care revelation. I took a mommyhood vacation”), though at times, Casares’s insights—mothers can’t do it all, the quality of time spent with kids is more important than the quantity, buy a good breast pump—don’t feel especially novel. Still, millennial moms especially will appreciate Casare’s encouragement and sensibility.