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WORK TITLE: The Happiest Mommy You Know
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/genevieveshawbrown/ * http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Genevieve-Shaw-Brown/567715086
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; husband’s name Ryan; children: three.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist and editor. Travelocity, former editorial director and national media spokesperson; ABC News Online, travel and lifestyle editor; Slacker Radio, lifestyle correspondent.
AWARDS:Silver Grand Award for Travel Journalist of the Year, Society of American Travel Writers, 2013; Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in reporting.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Web sites, including Good Morning America Online and Yahoo.com.
SIDELIGHTS
Genevieve Shaw Brown is a successful journalist and editor with several years of experience in travel and lifestyle writing. In addition to managing the travel content for ABC News Online, she has contributed to other outlets, including Good Morning America Online and Yahoo.com. “She writes on travel trends, deals, lifestyle topics, [and] breaking news,” noted a Muck Rack contributor. Brown is also a parent and the author of The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do.
Brown’s book evolved out of her work as a commentator for ABC. “The Happiest Mommy You Know,” explained Vincent O’Keefe on the City Dads Group Web site, “originated from a popular Good Morning America television segment about ‘The Baby Diet.’ Brown explains that after preparing organic feasts for her young children, she would often eat fast food in yoga pants. But when she started eating the healthier foods (on the healthier schedule) that her kids ate, she lost weight and felt better.” “Here’s the thing: when your kid is eating free-range organic food and you’re scarfing down fast food in the car, or your child is on the second playdate of the weekend and you haven’t seen your best friend for two months, something is dangerously out of whack,” Brown warned in her introduction to The Happiest Mommy You Know. “We need to take back some of our power, some of our agency, some of our time, and stop putting our loved ones’ needs before ours at every opportunity. Moms, listen to this: putting your kids first is the last thing you should do.”
However, Brown makes it clear that The Happiest Mommy You Know is not an argument for self-indulgence. “I’m not telling you to neglect your kids,” Brown asserted in the introduction to The Happiest Mommy You Know. “Instead, think about yourself for a change. Prioritize your own needs—eating well, getting enough sleep, spending time with your partner and your friends, even starting a new hobby. Be a little (gasp!) selfish, in the name of ultimately being a better mom. For once, treat yourself with the same care and love you give to your kids every day. That’s what I learned how to do. … It wasn’t always pretty, but it sure has yielded great rewards since I started this little experiment with my own family.” The time spent away from her family working on her own needs, she said, gives a better quality to the time she spends with her children. “I believe that having time away from them makes me more excited to be with them,” Brown explained to Carey Reilly in an interview appearing on the Web site Not So Skinny Mom with Carey Reilly. “I’m much more present when I am around them if I had some time away. If I get home late and they are in bed then the next morning they are excited to see me again. Instead of wishing their childhood away, make the choice to make these years the happiest—for both you and your children. How? By doing the things that make you happy—not by completely sacrificing who you are for the sake of the kids.”
Critics found that The Happiest Mommy You Know provides valuable insights into the power of self-help. “Brown … has written an effective self-help book that tells readers something they already know and inspires them to act,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer. “The Happiest Mommy shines out,” concluded Joyce McIntosh in Booklist, “and will be a hit in the parenting collection of public libraries.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Brown, Genevieve Shaw, The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do, Touchstone Books (New York, NY), 2017.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 15, 2016, Joyce McIntosh, review of The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do, p. 11.
Publishers Weekly, October 17, 2016, review of The Happiest Mommy You Know, p. 65.
ONLINE
City Dads Group, https://citydadsgroup.com/ (January 23, 2017), Vincent O’Keefe, review of The Happiest Mommy You Know.
Genevieve Shaw Brown Home Page, https://genevieveshawbrown.com (July 26, 2017).
Muck Rack, https://muckrack.com/ (July 26, 2017), author profile.
Not So Skinny Mom with Carey Reilly, http://notsoskinnymom.com/ (January 12, 2017), Carey Reilly, “Be a Happier Parent with Author Genevieve Shaw Brown.”*
Genevieve Shaw Brown is a lifestyle writer, editor, and reporter for ABC News living in New York with her husband and three children. She was the recipient of the 2013 Silver Grand Award for Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year from the Society of American Travel Writers and an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in reporting. The Happiest Mommy You Know is based on an article she first wrote for ABC News that was subsequently turned into a segment on Good Morning America.
Genevieve Shaw Brown is a lifestyle writer, editor, and reporter for ABC News living in New York with her husband and three children. She was the recipient of the 2013 Silver Grand Award for Travel Journalist of the Year from the Society of American Travel Writers and an Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in reporting. The Happiest Mommy You Know is based on an article she first wrote for ABC News that was subsequently turned into a short segment on Good Morning America. This is her first book.
Genevieve Shaw Brown is a travel and lifestyle expert that’s appeared on every network and cable news station in the nation to dispense travel advice, tricks of the trade, destination information and travel deals. Today, she’s the Travel & Lifestyle Editor at ABC News, contributing to Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, World News Now, ABC News Radio, ABC News Now and ABC News One. She is a lifestyle correspondent for the ABC news digital radio station on Slacker Radio. She manages all travel content for ABCNews.com and writes for ABCNews.com, GoodMorningAmerica.com and Yahoo.com. She writes on travel trends, deals, lifestyle topics, breaking news and more.
Before joining ABC, Genevieve was the Editorial Director and National Media Spokesperson at Travelocity. She’s been a guest on Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Early Show, Fox and Friends and a regular contributor to MSNBC Live and Fox Business Network. She’s appeared on thousands of radio and television programs and has lent her expertise to publications like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, People magazine and hundreds more.
She’s conducted many SMTs and is host of travel videos for ABC News.
Genevieve Shaw Brown is a travel and lifestyle expert that’s appeared on every network and cable news station in the nation to dispense travel advice, tricks of the trade, destination information and travel deals. Today, she’s the Travel & Lifestyle Editor at ABC News, contributing to Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, World News Now, ABC News Radio, ABC News Now and ABC News One. She is a lifestyle correspondent for the ABC news digital radio station on Slacker Radio. She manages all travel content for ABCNews.com and writes for ABCNews.com, GoodMorningAmerica.com and Yahoo.com. She writes on travel trends, deals, lifestyle topics, breaking news and more.
The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do
Joyce Mcintosh
113.8 (Dec. 15, 2016): p11.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do.
By Genevieve Shaw Brown.
Jan. 2017.304p. Touchstone, $26 (9781501151644). 306.874.
Award-winning journalist Brown goes beyond many of the recent humorous works by blogger moms. As an experienced researcher, she uses studies and statistics to back her reasons for supporting everything from going to the doctor (checkups aren't just for kids) to dressing for the feeling of success, or at least happiness, and treating your spouse at least as well as you do the local barista. The premise is clear but may be a challenge to achieve: "Treat yourself as well as you treat your kids." The Happiest Mommy You Know chronicles Brown's journey from raising her kids perfectly while losing sight of self-care to intentionally treating herself as well as she treated her kids. By regaining diet, health, sleep, and time with friends, she helped herself, and with her book, she'll help many other moms get back to being as healthy as they hope their children will be. In a saturated genre, The Happiest Mommy shines out and will be a hit in the parenting collection of public libraries.--Joyce Mcintosh
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mcintosh, Joyce. "The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do." Booklist, 15 Dec. 2016, p. 11. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476563411&it=r&asid=906b6566f62aaee1d4b6125972287f1a. Accessed 22 June 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A476563411
The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do
263.42 (Oct. 17, 2016): p65.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do
Genevieve Shaw Brown. Simon & Schuster, $26 (304p) ISBN 978-1-5011-3578-1
Brown (Ditch the Play Dates) has written an effective self-help book that tells readers something they already know and inspires them to act on that knowledge. She developed her book from a segment she created for Good Morning America on how she lost weight by feeding herself the meals she feeds her own children. Her basic advice is "Do for yourself what you instinctively do for your children every day." This means eat well, see your friends, make time for your primary relationship, exercise, see the doctor regularly, take time away from your children, and get a life coach or therapist if you need one. She doles out suggestions in a conversational tone, mixing personal anecdotes with research in an accessible way. She lives a harried, albeit privileged life as a married professional living in Manhattan and working for ABC News. Readers may not relate to her penchant for turning her son into "the best-dressed kid on the Upper East Side," but they'll likely relate to her tendency to dress in workout clothes while garbing her children better than herself. Her primer on maternal fulfillment is entertaining and affirming but hardly groundbreaking. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Happiest Mommy You Know: Why Putting Your Kids First Is the Last Thing You Should Do." Publishers Weekly, 17 Oct. 2016, p. 65. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468700078&it=r&asid=82bf1fee0eed83ebd9d6f1630279c012. Accessed 22 June 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468700078
‘Happiest Mommy You Know’ Prey to Gender Role Stereotyping
January 23, 2017 by Vincent O'Keefe Leave a Comment
happiest_mom_you_know_genev
Genevieve Shaw Brown’s ‘Happiest Mommy You Know’ book touts self-care but lets maternal gatekeeping create the problems she wants to solve.
The title intrigued me: The Happiest Mommy You Know.
I live with one mom (my wife) and two possible future moms (my teenage daughters), so I read Genevieve Shaw Brown’s new book with them in mind. Brown’s mantra is that mothers should treat themselves as well as they instinctively treat their children.
The Happiest Mommy You Know originated from a popular Good Morning America television segment about “The Baby Diet.” Brown explains that after preparing organic feasts for her young children, she would often eat fast food in yoga pants. But when she started eating the healthier foods (on the healthier schedule) that her kids ate, she lost weight and felt better. Gradually, she extended what she calls this “revolutionary” self-care idea — exercising and sleeping more, dressing better, and making more time for friends and her partner. The result? A much happier mom.
Though dads are not her intended audience, I found myself agreeing with most of her self-care ideas. She also incorporates helpful research, anecdotes, and humor. When I was in the throes of early at-home parenthood, her chapter on maintaining fashion would have been especially useful. (That was me in the baseball cap and milk-stained sweatshirt.)
Maternal gatekeeping, stereotyping shuts door on dads
But this identification with her ideas leads to my problem with The Happiest Mommy You Know. Brown declares that she and her husband, Ryan, are “true partners in every sense of the word” who share domestic labor as two working parents. Gradually, however, she reveals a mindset of maternal gatekeeping that I would argue contributes to unhappiness and exhaustion.
For example, she selects the kids’ clothes before bed every night “so that if, for whatever reason, Ryan gets to them before I do in the morning, there is zero chance of an unacceptable outfit being chosen, resulting in a clothing change and wasted time.” This sounds like “old girls’ club” talk; a dad is capable of picking out reasonable clothes for his children.
The book also contains some unhealthy generalizations about dads. Brown states:
“Moms are actually ‘on’ all night, too. A child wakes up from a nightmare … and there’s only one person they want to fix it: Mom.”
Regarding family travel, “Mom’s the one packing the beach bag, lathering everyone up with sunscreen … planning every meal, executing every activity.”
And she claims a thank-you note “is exactly the kind of thing moms do that dads just … literally never think of.”
These statements are more reactionary than “revolutionary.” They are also false in many homes, especially mine. Part of a mom’s (or dad’s) self-care should be an awareness of how conventional gender roles can sabotage their happiness. To be fair, Genevieve Shaw Brown eventually reflects that some of her unhappiness has stemmed from her own choices, or self-imposed burdens, and desire for control. And she is right to acknowledge the historical “weight of parenthood” for women, which unfairly leaves mothers feeling they do both too much and not enough.
But I would challenge her assessment that “perhaps there will be a time in the future when [the weight of parenthood] will come down more on Ryan. Maybe not.” I say yes, the future is now!
Don’t succumb to a lack of imagination; dads are more capable and involved — and under more pressure from the weight of parenthood — than ever. Moms can help sustain the momentum by expecting and enabling more from their husbands, rejecting generalizations and gatekeeping in the process. To use Brown’s formulation, the self-care practice of “letting our needs be known” seems like the best way to share the burdens of parenthood equally, and the key to happiness for both moms and dads.