Momfluenced Book Club Resources and Recommendations

get ready for our Angry Woman Book Club with all the bonus content you need for a deep dive

Are you ready for it?

This Friday at 1:30pm PT I’ll be joined by

Sara Petersen

to discuss her amazing book Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture. This was in my top five reads last year, and I think about it at least once a week (and every time I find myself watching a Lex DeLaRosa reel).

If you want to submit questions for book club just reply to this email and I’ll pop them into the doc. You can also ask questions live during the Zoom call which will take place this Friday, February 16th at 1:30m PT. This is a paid subscriber event, so make sure you update your subscription if you want to attend but haven’t upgraded yet!

The Zoom link will be available to paid subscribers to either of our newsletters, with a reminder sent out on the day of. But right now, I want to get you started with a fabulous book club resource list. Companion reads, writing prompts, who I cringe follow and what I’ve been momfluenced into purchasing. Come check it out!

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

Book Club Companion Reads

Momfluenced has one of the most comprehensive companion reading lists in the appendix and I HIGHLY recommend you start there. I haven’t read all of them, but here are some of the ones I recommend.

I don’t necessarily think of Momfluenced as part of the parenting book sphere, but most of my recs are in that genre because they are the basis for understanding my compulsion to follow aspirational accounts.

Mom Rage by

Minna Dubin

- This book was another favorite read last year because it spoke to the trapped feeling that leads us to momfluencers in the first place. I think this is such an antidote to the whitewashed, beatific scenes of motherhood we’re often fed on social media.

Screaming on the Inside by Jessica Grose - Again, let’s talk about why we need escapism in the first place. We’re on the subconscious hunt for something better, more beautiful, more minimalist than our own version of motherhood because what we do have is a nightmare.

The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz - I am on the last third of this book right now, and it is absolutely mind-blowing. While it was written well-before the #tradwife trend, it shows how misguided and misinformed we are about nostalgia for a “traditional” family that never really existed in the first place.

Hey, Hun by

Emily Paulson

- While there isn’t a huge deep dive into MLM specific momfluencers in our book club pick, I am fascinated by the world of MLMs and how they specifically capitalize on the insecurities provoked by modern motherhood. This book is that deep dive, and while I’m not all the way through it yet, I am enthralled.

Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin - I was not expecting a deep dive on internalized racism when I picked up Momfluenced, but it was the greatest unexpected learning experience that the book offered. The aesthetic of white momfluencers is so deeply tied to white motherhood as the ideal, and the ideal of white motherhood is illuminated and challenged in this beautiful memoir by Austin.

Touched Out by

Amanda Montei

- You’ve heard me talk about this book endlessly because it is just SO GOOD. I love how Montei’s work dives into the internalized messages about “good motherhood” and how they influence our behavior in ways we may not fully realize.

Questions & Writing Prompts

If you can’t tell, I’m someone who loves an immersive book club experience. I don’t just want to talk about the book on a surface level. I want to dive into how it made me feel and the ways it shifted or challenged my perspective.

• Who are some momfluencers you follow (or have followed)? What draws you to them? What else?

• Do you indulge in any “cringe follows”? Why?

• Do the influencers you follow reinforce your beliefs about motherhood or challenge them?

• What do you wish was different about your version of motherhood? What would actually make it more fulfilling/peaceful?

• If you could trade places with a momfluencer for a single day, who would it be and why? (Also, PUT THIS ONE IN THE COMMENTS, I NEED TO KNOW)

Who Momfluences Me?

Momfluenced was a book I had to stop reading so I could look up certain momfluencers (Ballerina Farm? I didn’t know her!) and do some obsessive scrolling. Was this a good thing? I don’t know! But did I love it? Yes.

I actually didn’t think a ton about the world of momfluencers until I came to this book, though I have always been under their spell, even before Instagram was a thing. I’m thinking the mom blogs of the early to mid aughts. Like Design Mom

Gabrielle Blair

? Obsessed (to this day). There is one woman named Danielle whose blog I still think about, but I can’t remember her last name/blog name/any identifying details for the life of me, but I am still deeply influenced by her manicure tips and the slow idyllic summer scenes she shared on her blog.

Anyhow, here’s who’s momfluencing me these days:

@designmom -

Gabrielle Blair

has been a longtime obsession of mine. I don’t follow her world as closely as I did when I had small children and dreamed of the impossible life that would allow me to move them to France and renovate an old farmhouse. But I do now obsessively believe that her book Ejaculate Responsibly should be required reading for all.

@lex.delarosa - Is it satire? IS IT? I still don’t entirely know and am also not entirely sure I care? Lex DeLaRosa does things like refer to her preschool age children in “months” (like my 47-month-old) and makes a single bowl of homemade cocoa puffs and does baking montages with a placid smile and her eyes closed. I can’t look away. CAN NOT.

@feminist.mom.therapist - I LOVE Erin Spahr and her podcast, but her social media is what originally drew me to her. I’ve recently been devouring her content on teen magazine covers of the early aughts, which shows exactly how we ended up with the sort of damaged cultural programming that leaves us susceptible to being momfluenced in harmful ways.

@thatdarnchat -

Laura Danger

is one of my favorite humans, who I wouldn’t think of as an influencer or momfluencer except for the fact that she showed up in this book! Her content is the opposite of what you probably think of when you think momfluencer - it is real and raw and definitely doesn’t fit with the Instagram aesthetic. Her account reminds me that motherhood can be a catalyst for activism and growth and is never (and I mean NEVER) not political.

Things I’ve Been Momfluenced Into Buying

I really like to think that I’m somehow smarter than marketing campaigns launched by momfluencers, but what a joke! Of course I am susceptible to that shit! I’m honestly a little shocked that I didn’t get sucked into an MLM when my kids were young (I was deep down that Dave Ramsey rabbit hole at the time, but don’t worry, I’m still paying off the debt of THAT with therapy).

• Any and all design choices I have made. I don’t know who they came from, I just know that I don’t watch HGTV anymore and I also don’t have any sort of innate taste and so Instagram is the reason for my fake wood floors and pendant lights and houseplants and all else.

• The fish oil vitamins (are they vitamins?) that I use. I feel like they make a difference, but I also always low-key think that all my supplements are giving me a placebo effect.

• The ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas. No regrets.

• Naturium plant ceramide face moisturizer. I don’t know if I actually like it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t use it all. I like Origins Night-A-Mins much better and I’m sure someone influenced me into buying that too.

• Hape wooden toys. This was definitely the most momfluency thing I bought in the vain hope it would make my kids indulge in the quiet, soulful deep play that would infer good motherhood upon me. It did not! But they’re pretty when left out on the floor, and they don’t make noise, and I stand by this purchase.

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And you know me, I am always on the hunt for your favorite things. If you have favorite momfluenced buys, books I should read, folks I should follow leave them in the comments! I’ll see you on Friday for book club! Add it to your calendar by clicking the button below if you’re a paid subscriber: