1. Becoming

Description

Michelle Obama has become one of the most fascinating and recognisable figures of our time because to her meaningful and successful life. She was the first African American woman to serve as First Lady of the United States of America, and in that role she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also becoming a powerful advocate for women and girls in the United States and around the world, radically altering the ways in which families pursue healthier and more active lifestyles, and supporting her husband as he led the country through some of its darkest hours.

She has taught us a few dance steps, destroyed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two grounded girls, all while being constantly scrutinized by the press.

Michelle Obama’s memoir is a work of introspection and mesmerising storytelling in which she takes the reader on a journey through her life, from her upbringing on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive juggling the demands of motherhood and work to her current position as First Lady of the United States. She tells her whole tale, the good and the bad, the public and the personal, in her own words and on her own terms, with unwavering honesty and a vivid humour. Becoming is the warm, smart, and revealing personal accounting of a woman of spirit and substance who has consistently defied expectations, and whose tale motivates us to do the same.

2. Work. Pump. Repeat.

Description

Breast pumps are working mothers’ worst enemy. Many women have moved beyond “breast is best” to making milk while returning to work. Work. Pump. Repeat. is the first book to go beyond “Mommy Wars” and nursing criticism. Jessica Shortall offers a roadmap for negotiating the pumping schedule with coworkers, handling business travel, and problem-solving when compelled to pump in less-than-desirable settings. She provides women with moral support for coping with the stress and guilt of working while nursing by drawing on the war tales, hacks, and humour of working parents and her own experiences from her busy career and travels in impoverished nations. She writes, “Your value as a mother is not measured in ounces.”

3. Working Mom Survival Guide

Description

Mothers who work outside the house face and often overcome a wide range of difficulties in their professional and personal lives every day. This book provides clear, uncomplicated ideas and practical shortcuts from the editors of Working Mother, who are also seasoned working mothers.

The Working Mom Survival Guide, compiled by the editors of Working Mother magazine, has the solutions to all of your most pressing problems. Dependent on your BlackBerry to the point of addiction? What techniques do you use to teach your child to listen? Where do you go to get on or off the mommy track? Quickly access the facts every working mother needs to know, from monitoring your teen’s internet activity to negotiating a more accommodating work schedule, and then go back to your day. This humorous and helpful guide compiles the advice and experience of other working mothers so that you may have a head start just when you need it.

4. Faking Balance: Adventures in Work and Life

Description

While everyone else is trying to lean in and maximise their potential, Lela Davidson is busy generating spreadsheets. She has done it all as a working mother, from the corporate fast track to the mommy track to the freelancing world in yoga pants. Davidson has a knack for seeing the funny side of normal family life, whether she’s on a pumping break or telling her children to put the brakes on romance.

Davidson thrills readers with anecdotes about the difficult decisions working women confront on a daily basis in this collection of sympathetic, humorous articles. She encourages us all to take joy in the little things and laugh off the big failures along the way by sharing her experiences entering and leaving the employment.

5. Good Enough Is the New Perfect

Description

We’re supposed to be the first generation to have it all: success in one’s career, happiness in one’s personal relationships, and leisure time to do all three. Do you feel like you’ve forgotten how to be joyful because of all the meetings and soccer practises? And are you learning the hard way that you just can’t handle it all?

The reality is that you do not need to choose.

Making a “all” that you adore is the key.

Join a growing group of women who are realising they don’t need to sweat the small stuff in order to achieve their professional and personal goals. Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple’s ground-breaking study reveals a paradigm shift in modern motherhood: more and more moms are abandoning the “never enough” mentality in favour of the “good enough” approach. Good Enough Is the New Perfect is a genuine blueprint for the wonderful balancing act we call parenthood, filled with inspirational personal anecdotes from working moms and taken from the latest research.

6. Balance Is a Crock, Sleep Is for the Weak

Description

Although they may include some helpful information, most books written for working mothers are serious how-to manuals that lack the sarcasm and practicality that modern, harried women want. Amy Eschliman and Leigh Oshirak, both seasoned professionals in marketing, understand how difficult it is to juggle a demanding career with caring for a family, and they also know that humour is often the best medicine for keeping your sanity. Balance is a Crock, Sleep is for the Weak is a survival handbook for the rest of us, and it’s packed with issues that are both hilarious and quite relevant.

• Is Maternity Leave a Relaxing Break or a Living Hell?
• The Breastaurant is Now Open for Business: Pumping and Working Full Time While Breastfeeding.
• The Mother of Your Husband, You Are Not! and several other time-consuming commitments.
• Additional tips for working mothers on a daily basis

Work-at-home moms, or women who are contemplating going back to work after having a child, can’t do without Balance is a Crock, Sleep is for the Weak.

7. I Don’t Know How She Does It

Description

Allison Pearson’s first book, “The National Anthem for Working Mothers,” has been hailed as both “delightfully witty” and “heartbreakingly sad.” Kate Reddy, a hedge fund manager, wife, and mother of two, can keep up with the Teletubbies while dealing with nine different currencies in five different time zones. But when she wakes up at 1:37 a.m. in a frenzy because she forgot to bake a pie for her daughter’s classroom, she knows her life has changed irrevocably.