It鈥檚 clear by now that for women,聽鈥渉aving it all鈥濃�晈here 鈥渋t鈥� encompasses children, a partner, hobbies, a healthy social life, and a thriving career鈥昳s a fantasy. This fantasy tends to be peddled by people who are either too na茂ve or too oblivious to recognize how only certain kinds of privilege make this possible.

It鈥檚 useful, then, to have frank memoirs from women trying to fold their families into their wanderlust and their passions. They might not always succeed. But these three new聽books show how worthwhile it is to view motherhood not as the death knell for an adventurous spirit, but as one adventure that might be compatible with others鈥攊f you can afford the compromises.

(Conundrum, $20) has an unusual format聽that reflects the tricky logistics of planning a family adventure.聽This travel narrative is told in daily postcards drawn and written by author Alison McCreesh, which relate a six-month journey she and her active young family take to places above the sixtieth parallel: from their home in Yellowknife, Canada to other northern parts of Greenland, Iceland, Finland, and Russia. McCreesh鈥檚 black-and-white drawings are simple but effective at capturing both the daily moments of life 鈥渘orth of 60鈥� (like the elderly women in Lapua, Finland, travelling by scooter even in the heart of winter) and the stark beauty of these frozen parts (like the fjords of the Arctic Circle, inhabited by musk oxen).

Some financial resourcefulness is necessary to enable this trip of a lifetime. McCreesh聽applied for and was awarded artists鈥� residencies聽in the various destinations, and the trip was also partly funded through individual contributions of $20, in exchange for one of the postcards. She and her husband wanted to pull off the trip before their baby turned two, so that he could travel for free.

The complications of these logistics hint at the complications of domestic details overseas, which test McCreesh鈥檚 marriage and her work. She struggles with feeling like she鈥檚 spending too much time in art studio, while her husband struggles with being the main caregiver for their infant. Both partners are dissatisfied at points. And McCreesh鈥檚 niggling worries鈥攁bout not enjoying the experience enough, about working too much or too little, about not spending enough time with her family鈥攚ill feel familiar to many women juggling multiple roles and feeling not entirely successful in each.聽On New Year鈥檚 Day, 2017, McCreesh writes to a fellow Canadian: 鈥淚 worry I missed out on the real experience of this residency. I worry I鈥檓 generally missing out on the real experience of life.”聽

Juli Berwald, the jellyfish-obsessed author of (Riverhead, $18), also travels to interesting places for work. Key for her鈥攁 mother of two who feels wistful about having left behind her career as an ocean scientist鈥攊s fitting research trips聽for her book聽into the rhythms of family life. So she uses her husband鈥檚 frequent-flier miles to book a trip to Japan, where she hunts for giant jellyfish. During family vacations on the Massachusetts coast, her husband and kids go mini-golfing while she visits a marine biology lab. And she turns a family trip to Israel, for her nephew鈥檚 bar mitzvah, into an opportunity to spot a jellyfish bloom. But this also becomes an opportunity to introduce her kids to snorkelling and snuba diving, and thus to share her passion for open waters. Clearly, having both a supportive partner and some financial security are key to making all this work.

Spineless is more science book than conventional memoir, with biology descriptions that sometimes verge on the tedious. But these can also be breathtaking, like the descriptions of the light show that bioluminescent sea creatures put on in the deep ocean. The book is聽also full of intriguing tidbits about the surprising power of jellyfish. For example, massive gatherings of jellyfish have caused power outages in several countries.

But apart from the many fun facts scattered throughout the book, what shines through this is Berwald鈥檚 fascination with her subject, and the way it transformed a woman feeling stuck in her life and craving a new purpose. 鈥淭he jellyfish helped me dig down to a fire inside,鈥� Berwald writes.

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $23) is more somber than the other books. Author Melissa Stephenson has written elsewhere about using running as a kind of . Driven tackles a different trauma鈥晅he suicide of her brother鈥昦nd a different movement-based coping mechanism鈥昫riving.

Driven is the story of Stephenson鈥檚 life, told through the cars in her life. As with some of her聽relationships, many of these are broken, and not all get repaired. Wanderlust is instilled in Stephenson from a young age, and cars both enable her spirit of adventure and allow her to get at intangible emotions while dealing with very tangible objects.

Her love of the open road also endangers her at times, like when she drives over the prairies between Montana and Indiana聽in a blizzard. In one sequence that鈥檚 alternately funny and horrifying, college student Stephenson drives from Montana to Alaska with a boy she鈥檚 lukewarm about, but whose VW camper van she adores. After they fight and split up, she鈥檚 left to hitchhike from Anchorage to Homer with a truck driver who gets increasingly creepy. After she kicks and threatens him, he agrees to let her drive the rest of the way. He even gives her some cash by way of apology.

But mostly,聽Driven is about family. Stephenson spends much of the book grappling with her old family having gone from four to three members after her brother鈥檚 death. But she reaches closure and contentment when her new family, after her divorce and her ex-husband鈥檚 departure from Montana, also morphs from four people to three鈥攈erself and her two kids. As she writes, in one of many moving passages, 鈥淲e are complete, the three of us a unit I want finally to travel with, not run from, no sight in the world worth seeing unless we do it together.鈥� By the end of the book she鈥檚 managed to incorporate her kids into her wanderlust, whether on cross-country road trips or on shorter camping trips, rather than just driving away.

These books don鈥檛 belong to the memoir adventure genre, but they鈥檙e part of a new crop of women鈥檚 memoirs detailing messy everyday realities through an outdoorsy lens. We need more stories like these from women with even more diverse circumstances (after all, McCreesh, Berwald, and Stephenson are all white North American women with male partners or ex-partners).聽In general, we need more stories from women like these three, who聽all crave new experiences and knowledge, and are frank about the compromises they have to make for their families. Together they provide a snapshot of how some creative, experience-seeking women are seeking not to 鈥渉ave it all,鈥� but to 鈥渕ake it work鈥濃�攅ven with a baby in tow.

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