{"id":116524,"date":"2005-07-28T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-28T20:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/when-motherhood-tears-friendship-apart-friendship-day-launch-for-dual-momoir-about-breaking-up-over-baby\/"},"modified":"2005-07-28T16:44:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-28T20:44:00","slug":"when-motherhood-tears-friendship-apart-friendship-day-launch-for-dual-momoir-about-breaking-up-over-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/when-motherhood-tears-friendship-apart-friendship-day-launch-for-dual-momoir-about-breaking-up-over-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"When Motherhood Tears Friendship Apart &#8211; Friendship Day Launch for Dual Momoir about Breaking Up Over Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"s2pred\"><strong>NEWS SOURCE: SocioPathways<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>Comedy duo authors, Cohen and Bechtel, challenge the dogmas that divide women<\/b><\/p>\n<p> OAKLAND, Calif. &#8211; July 28 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) &#8212; Friendship Day is just around the corner. August 7th is a time to celebrate that special human bond Woodrow Wilson called &#8220;the only cement that holds the world together.&#8221; But what happens when that cement begins to crack under the strain of childbirth? Does Sisterhood stand a chance against Parenthood? That was the question that inspired Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel to write &#8220;Motherhood Confidential, The Strange Disappearance of My Best Friend, a Rashomon-style Odyssey of Trials by Parenthood&#8221; from SocioPathways.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/mediaboom\/cov-motherhood_72dpi.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p> <i>Photo Caption: Polarized parenting authors launch Fall Book Tour.<\/i><\/p>\n<p> &#8220;I didn&#8217;t exist anymore after she became a mother.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;She gave me a baby shower and I never saw her again.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Once we had kids, our parenting was so different we just drifted apart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Enter baby &#8211; exit buddy. What best friend hasn&#8217;t had to move over and make room for Junior? Or lost a girlfriend to the Bermuda Triangle of Family Obligations? Even friends who go through pregnancy together can&#8217;t be sure of smooth sailing. Anyone can have a friendshipwreck on the Shores of Maternity. But why? Isn&#8217;t motherhood supposed to unite women? Why would it drive them apart?<\/p>\n<p> That was the question that inspired Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel to write Motherhood Confidential, The Strange Disappearance of My Best Friend, a Rashomon-style Odyssey of Trials by Parenthood. &#8220;We spent eight years struggling to keep our friendship afloat after we had our boys, but we were 180 degrees apart in our parenting,&#8221; explains married working urban mom, Cohen. &#8220;When this bundle of responsibilities is handed to you,&#8221; adds rural attachment-parenting single mom, Bechtel, &#8220;it can be so overwhelming, you can forget about everyone else, even yourself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Bechtel&#8217;s idea to circulate the pre-publication copies to &#8220;Regular Moms&#8221; preview paid off in a surprising way. &#8220;We were shocked to discover how many women had been through this. We got some pretty emotional emails.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> According to the comedy duo authors, when parenthood tears friendship apart, there&#8217;s usually a Big Mother behind it. The Big Mother of Shoulds, Shouldnt&#8217;s and Shame. The Mommy Police are not just walking around dressed as your sister, your doctor and the pizza delivery guy; the real Gestapo&#8217;s in your own head. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Linda never came out and said she thought I was crazy to homeschool,&#8221; says Bechtel, &#8220;but her careful avoidance of the subject shouted disapproval like cheerleaders at the Superbowl of Superiority.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Cohen describes the frustration of watching her best friend trying to squeeze into a Maternal Perfection Suit. &#8220;You watch her cutting away parts of herself that won&#8217;t fit into her new Parentally-Correct Formula. It&#8217;s like psychological liposuction. You can see you&#8217;re losing her-but worse-she&#8217;s losing herself. You want to yank her out of the dogma-doo, but you can&#8217;t. She has to find her own way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> So how do you hold onto friendship when motherhood&#8217;s tearing you apart? The Personalized Parenting authors offer Triage for Toxic taboos: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> \t1. Break the taboo that all feelings about motherhood or friendship have to be nice. The more we can accept our &#8220;unacceptable&#8221; feelings, the less someone else&#8217;s choices will trigger our own anxiety.<\/p>\n<p> \t2. Look for the common ground. Underneath the surface disparities, you probably want the same thing: to be encouraged to be who you really are.<\/p>\n<p> \t3. Follow the Prime Directive from Star Trek: Don&#8217;t impose your value system or interfere in the self-determination of an alien culture. You two don&#8217;t live on the same planet anymore. You&#8217;re contending with different gravities, atmospheric pressures, and evolution of life forms. You&#8217;re now ambassadors from different worlds. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> But forgiveness is key. As Emerson said, &#8220;One of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Their L.A. book tour offering asylum for the parentally-incorrect begins August 4th at Williams Book Store in San Pedro followed by a Friendship Day Book Launch Party at Sisters of Bubik Boutique Cafe. The Bay Area tour includes a Book Party at Spellbinding Tales in Alameda. <\/p>\n<p> For a complete calendar go to www.MotherhoodConfidential.com. Motherhood Confidential ISBN 9760930-0-6 GynaVision Media:SocioPathways 251 pp, $13.95 available Friendship Day. <\/p>\n<p>News issued by: SocioPathways<\/p>\n<p> # # # <\/p>\n<p><small>Original Story ID:  (611) :: 2005-07-0728-004<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>Original Keywords: Motherhood Confidential, The Strange Disappearance of My Best Friend, a Rashomon-style Odyssey of Trials by Parenthood, sociopathways, Linda Cohen, Joan Bechtel, Comedy duo authors, ISBN 9760930-0-6, GynaVision Media, Friendship Day Book Launch Party at Sisters of Bubik Boutique Cafe, Oakland, California, book, Cohen and Bechtel SocioPathways   <\/small><\/p>\n<p class=\"s2pred\"><strong>NEWS SOURCE: SocioPathways<\/strong> | Published: 2005-07-28 16:44:00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OAKLAND, Calif. &#8211; July 28 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) &#8212; Friendship Day is just around the corner. August 7th is a time to celebrate that special human bond Woodrow Wilson called &#8216;the only cement that holds the world together.&#8217; But what happens when that cement begins to crack under the strain of childbirth? Does Sisterhood stand a chance against Parenthood? That was the question that inspired Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel to write &#8216;Motherhood Confidential, The Strange Disappearance of My Best Friend, a Rashomon-style Odyssey of Trials by Parenthood&#8217; from SocioPathways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9780,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"singles-wide.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19937],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases-archive","has-post-title","has-post-date","no-post-category","no-post-tag","no-post-comment","has-post-author"],"acf":[],"views":543,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9780"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}