Introduction -- Part 1: Looking back. From arms full to hand free -- Your new parenting job description -- Last Christmas, and how to let go -- You won't remember this later -- The 'muscle memory' of motherhood, and what I learned at the mall -- The loneliest years -- The truth about the empty nest -- On parental pride (and those other feelings) -- Regrets, I have (quite) a few -- The new rules of the game: Developing a parenting philosophy when your kids aren't so little -- Big kids, big problems, big fat worry -- Why we must sleep -- We're not done yet -- Part 2: What's ahead. All the mothers I'll never be -- Beyond the coastal grandmother -- Learning to feed myself -- The tyranny of the hot midlife mom -- I just want to be alone -- Friend me like a boomer -- Our hormones, ourselves: The opportunity of perimenopause -- Creativty: The new fertility -- On chickens, children, and choosing caretaking -- The grandmother hypothesis -- The time we've had, the time we have -- Acknowledgments -- About the author

"From the co-host of the hit podcast The Mom Hour, The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever Read is your guide to the last stage of "active" parenting as your teenagers prepare to step into the world and you prepare to step back into yourself, for moms getting ready to launch their almost-adult kids and enter the empty nesting stage of their lives"--