"Me Time": Motherhood, Reading, and Myths of Leisure

Abstract

In this micro article, the authors survey the media landscape,including bestseller lists and celebrity book club culture, thinkpieces and mommy blogs, to examine the discourse around "me time,"reading, and motherhood. The article explores how the cultivationof "me time," which is ostensibly about taking time away frommothering, returns mothers to the work of self-improvement,disguised as self-care. The books that mothers are reading (judgedby their posts online, book awards, bestseller lists, book clubculture, etc.) and the ways they are blogging about "me time"reading suggests that under the conditions of twenty-first-centuryneoliberalism, reading mothers must use this time to meditate uponand improve their mothering. "Me time" reading is framed as aseparation from maternal labor but instead impels mothers tojustify their solitary habit and redeem reading as a contributionto—rather than detraction from—family life.