It's a Girl - Women Writers on Raising Daughters

The most popular question any pregnant woman is asked — aside from "When are you due?" — has got to be "Are you having a girl or a boy?" When author Andrea Buchanan was pregnant with her daughter, she was thrilled to be expecting a girl. Some people were happy for her; visions of flouncy pink dresses and promises of mother-daughter bonding were the predictable responses. Other people, though, were concerned: "Is your husband OK with that?" "You can try again." "Girls are tough." This mixed message led her to explore the issue herself, with help from her fellow writers and moms, many of whom had had the same experience. As she did in It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, Buchanan and her contributors take on what it's really like to raise a child-in this case, a girl-from babyhood to adulthood.

It's a Girl is a wide-ranging, often humorous, and honest collection of essays about the experience of the mother-daughter bond, taking on topics like "princess power" ("Shining, Shimmering, Splendid"), adding a girl to a brood of boys ("Confessions of a Tomboy Mom"), dealing with a daughter's eating disorder ("The Food Rules"), and mothering "hardcore mini-feminists" ("Tough Girls").

Contents:

Introduction by Andrea J. Buchanan
"Her Perfect Woman" by Carolyn Alessio
"Shining, Simmering, Splendid" by Kim Fischer
"Ladylike" by Gabrielle Smith-Dluha
"Tough Girls" by Rebecca Steinitz
"Confessions of a Tomboy Mom" by Jacquelyn Mitchard
"Girl House" by Yvonne Latty
"Cheerleader" by Miriam Peskowitz
"It's a Girl" by Martha Brockenbrough
"On Being Barbie" by Jenny Block
"The Food Rules" by Ann Douglas
"Feeling is First: On Beauty and a Daughter" by Gwendolyn Gross
"Breasts: A Collage" by Rachel Hall
"The World's Most Beautiful Baby—Take Two" by Joyce Maynard
"Baby Fat" by Catherine Newman
"Me and My Girls" by Amy Bloom
"Girl Talk" by Suzanne Kamata
"Daughter Dread" by Vicky Mylniec
"Spilled Wine" by Jennifer Margulis
"Garden City" by Jessica Berger Gross
"Park-Bench Epiphany" by Kelly H. Johnson
"A Strong Baby Girl" by Emily Alexander Strong
"Links" by Jennifer Lauck
"On Wanting a Girl" by Shari Macdonald Strong
"Zen Mind, Daughter's Mind" by Gayle Grandeis
"Twenty Minutes" by Jill Siler
"Isolation" by Barbara Card Atkinson
"Time Capsule" by Jody Mace
"The Boy We Didn't Have" by Katharine Weber
"Learning to Write" by Andrea J. Buchanan
"Passing it On" by Leslie Leyland Fields