Holding the Baby

Part-memoir, part-manifesto, Holding the Baby is a wildly reassuring and radically ambitious book for any new parents who have felt dismissed, misunderstood or short-changed.

‘My favourite person on the politics of parenthood’ Pandora Sykes

‘Exhilarating, infuriating, urgent and human’ Daisy Buchanan

‘A blazing, brilliant read … compassionate, convincing, funny!’ Amy Liptrot

‘Honest, unflinching and necessary’ Sara Pascoe

‘Funny and brisk … urgent and incisive’ Rob Delaney

‘A timely and important book’ Clover Stroud

It’s time to share the motherload.

A memoir culminating in a manifesto, Holding the Baby sets out to understand why we still treat early parenthood as an individual slog rather than a shared cultural responsibility. Tracing her own journey to the nadir of sleeplessness via social retreat and murderous rage, Frizzell draws on the latest research to explore-

- What effect does parenting have on your career?

- How can we make childcare affordable and fit for purpose?

- If parenting is so hard, why does anyone ever do it more than once?

Funny, reassuring and radically ambitious, Holding the Baby sheds light on the ways in which we fail new parents, and offers a rallying crying that we fight for a better alternative.

Author Biography

Nell Frizzell is a writer, journalist and Vogue columnist. She has written and worked for the Guardian, VICE, The Sunday Times, Elle, the BBC, the Observer, Grazia and The Independent among many others. Her first book, The Panic Years, was an exploration of bodies, babies and the big questions facing modern life. Her debut novel, Square One, painted a humorous picture of moving home, fathers and daughters and surviving heartbreak. She lives in Oxford, in a very small house full of pasta and bedding and bikes.