Optimal Motherhood and Other Lies Facebook Told Us - Paperback Book - Assembling the Networked Ethos of Contemporary Maternity Advice - by Jessica E Clements - 9780262543620 - MIT Press Ltd

Many mothers today turn to social media for parenting advice, joining online mothers’ groups on and elsewhere. But the communities they find in these supposed safe havens can be rife with aggression, peer pressure, and groupthink—insisting that only certain practices are “best,” “healthiest,” “safest” (and mandatory). In this book, Jessica Clements and Kari Nixon debunk the myth of “optimal motherhood”—the idea that there is only one right answer to parenting dilemmas, and that optimal mothers must pursue perfection. In fact, Clements and Nixon write, parenting choices are not binaries, and the scientific findings touted by mommy groups are neither clear-cut nor prescriptive.