Four Mothers

In the tradition of Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women and Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road, international reporter and radio producer Abigail Leonard's page-turning work blends reporting, research and history as it follows four women—Anna from Finland, Tsukasa from Japan, Sarah from the U.S., and Chelsea from Kenya—through the first year of motherhood. Leonard embedded with four mothers, in four cities around the world—in the US, Japan, Finland, and Kenya—for one year, starting the day they gave birth. What followed was an experience both remarkably unique, for each woman, and remarkably universal. Taking readers inside their partnerships, families, and day-to-day struggles, supported by deeply researched background on the health and social services and cultural norms that influence their lives, Leonard's portrait of early motherhood will completely change how readers think about what mothers need and deserve. Situated within her own experience of motherhood, she creates a narrative and international portrait of new motherhood and the country-specific policy that scaffolds this transitional phase of life. Throughout Leonard's year of reporting, it became clear that a country’s history, culture, and brand of feminism determined the lived experience of mothers and, crucially, the choices available to them. As debates surrounding paid leave, universal daycare, and national healthcare rage on, Four Mothers is an intimate portrait of what those policies mean in the everyday lives of four women—and a compelling argument for the necessity and urgency of supporting parents.