Did you know there are more than 9,000 blogs written by parents, and thousands of books in the "mommylit" and "daddylit" category? In this course we will examine the relationship between parenting and literary narrative. At the start of the course we will look at parent writing from a theoretical point of view: in what way is writing (production) related to having children (reproduction)? After that we will look at the memoirs, novels, and non-fiction works that have accompanied America¿s second baby "boomlet"¿both in terms of how writers have responded to having children, and how having children has made so many mothers and fathers into writers. We will read such best sellers as Operating Instructions, Alternadad and Perfect Madness as well as the short story anthology, Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood. We¿ll read some books about dads, too, like Michael Berube¿s memoir about having an autistic son, Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child, and Making Men into Fathers: Men, Masculinities and the Social Politics of Fatherhood. You will also be expected to follow several parenting blogs throughout the course and to journal about them.