As a mom, do you feel a constant pressure and nagging guilt that comes from chasing perfection? A drive for perfection has a negative effect on the relationships you are trying to build and nurture in your home. Amy Rienow offers every mom hope and encouragement to build healthy relationships and find real joy. She writes like a friend reminding moms to embrace each day as an opportunity to build heart-connections with their children. This book is laced with honest and practical parenting advice from a biblical perspective. Amy shares 12 "Mom Missions" that will give moms a new approach to raising happy children who know they are loved.
Over the years, author Glenice Lui has learned many valuable lessons from her children; now she shares her favourite insights from being a mom. Modern moms try their best to juggle the many demands on their time and energy, with varying levels of success. Glenice has shared your struggle to balance work and family. Like you, shes learned that while moms may not always have the right answers, if their actions are driven by pure and unconditional love, things will usually work out just fine in the end. Teachings of a Not-So-Perfect Mom, her gift to moms everywhere, is filled with funny, heartwarming, and inspirational life lessons she has experienced. She wants to send the message that all moms have been given an innate gift of unimaginable love that transcends any difficulties coming our way in bringing up our families. So instead of wasting energy trying to be perfect, moms just need to have perfect love for their families.
"Have kids," they said. "It will be the best thing that ever happened to you," they encouraged. In therapy, on the cusp of a mental breakdown caused by a sleep-defying baby, Alyssa DeRose listens as her therapist (read: paid best friend) finally puts her version of the truth into words: "It's okay if becoming a mother was both the best and worst thing to ever happen to you." Alyssa now welcomes fellow women into the brutal and transformational season of life called new motherhood, inviting us to reflect on our own flawed stories of motherhood and offering needed permission to embrace our imperfection. Written from the trenches of her daily life, MOMOIR: A New Mom's Journey to Embracing Her Not-So-Perfect Motherhood provides a front-row seat to Alyssa's struggles with motherhood--through miscarriage and postpartum depression and marital stress and a surprise second baby. She shares her colorful story with authenticity, faith, and a healthy dose of levity, three ingredients she has learned every mother needs to survive.
Most motherhood books tell you how to be the perfect mom and how to raise the perfect kid. This is not one of those books. This is a collection of light-hearted, true stories about the bizarre experience of pregnancy, attempting to avoid public tantrums, making it through the terrible twos (and ones, threes and fours) and trying not to punch the husband while he is trying to be “helpful”. Jasmine Han & Shelly Holly, both moms with three young kids between them, regale us with their humorous collective experiences about surviving, and not perfecting, motherhood.
From the creator of The Honest Toddler comes a fiction debut sure to be a must–read for mums everywhere There are good mums and bad mums – and then there are hot–mess mums. Introducing Ashley Keller, career girl turned stay–at–home mum who's trying to navigate the world of Pinterest–perfect, Facebook–fantastic and Instagram–impressive mommies but failing miserably. When Ashley gets the opportunity to participate in the Motherhood Better boot camp run by the mummy–blog–empire maven she idolises, she jumps at the chance to become the perfect mum she's always wanted to be. But will she fly high or flop? With her razor–sharp wit and knack for finding the funny in everything, Bunmi Laditan creates a character as flawed and lovable as Bridget Jones or Becky Bloomwood while hilariously lambasting the societal pressures placed upon every new mother. At its heart, Ashley's story reminds mums that there's no way to be perfect, but many ways to be great.
A rhyming illustrated humor book for moms who feel they're not doing a good job (and that's all moms, right?). Packed with scientifically true examples of terrible parents in the animal kingdom, to remind and reassure any mother that there are way worse moms out there.
In Momnipotent (the book), Danielle Bean provides much-needed encouragement to all women. Momnipotent validates the dignity and importance of motherhood by helping mothers to recognize 8 uniquely feminine strengths, and how to use those strengths to find peace, purpose, balance, and joy in being the woman God created and called them to be.
I don't know how she does it! is an oft-heard refrain about mothers today. Funnily enough, most moms agree they have no idea how they get it done, or whether they even want the job. Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile spoke to mothers of every stripe--working, stay-at-home, part-time--and found a surprisingly similar trend in their interviews. After enthusing about her lucky life for twenty minutes, a mother would then break down and admit that her child's first word was "Shrek." As one mom put it, "Am I happy? The word that describes me best is challenged." Fresh from the front lines of modern motherhood comes a book that uncovers the guilty secrets of moms today . . . in their own words. I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids diagnoses the craziness and offers real solutions, so that mothers can step out of the madness and learn to love motherhood as much as they love their kids.
When Salon.com published Faulkner Fox’s article on motherhood, “What I Learned from Losing My Mind,” the response was so overwhelming that Salon reran the piece twice. The experience made Faulkner realize that she was not alone—that the country is full of women who are anxious and conflicted about their roles as mothers and wives. In Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life, her provocative, brutally honest, and often hilarious memoir of motherhood, Faulkner explores the causes of her unhappiness, as well as the societal and cultural forces that American mothers have to contend with. From the time of her first pregnancy, Faulkner found herself—and her body—scrutinized by doctors, friends, strangers, and, perhaps most of all, herself. In addition to the significant social pressures of raising the perfect child and being the perfect mom, Faulkner also found herself increasingly incensed by the unequal distribution of household labor and infuriated by the gender inequity in both her home and others’. And though she loves her children and her husband passionately, is thankful for her bountiful middle-class life, and feels wracked with guilt for being unhappy, she just can’t seem to experience the sense of satisfaction that she thought would come with the package. She’s finally got it all—the husband, the house, the kids, an interesting part-time job, even a few hours a week to write—so why does she feel so conflicted? Faulkner sheds light on the fear, confusion, and isolation experienced by many new mothers, mapping the terrain of contemporary domesticity, marriage, and motherhood in a voice that is candid, irreverent, and deeply personal, while always chronicling the unparalleled joy she and other mothers take in their children.
Beauty is Found in the Ordinary The world is shouting at us to be more. Strive. Achieve. Overachieve. Never stop pushing. As a family practice doctor, wife, and mother, Mikala Albertson appeared to be living a "perfect" life, but really her whole world was falling apart. Married seven years to an alcohol and drug addict while raising two young children and finishing residency, Mikala eventually reached a breaking point. And surrendered. In sifting through the shattered pieces of her life, she realized she had been chasing something that doesn't exist. Perfect is pretend. And what she desperately needed to embrace was ordinary. A good, hard, messy, gritty, lovely, ordinary life. In Ordinary on Purpose, Mikala shares her heartfelt journey in a raw and revealing way as she invites you to lay down your own endless chase for perfection and embrace this beautiful, messy life exactly as it is with our perfect, loving God right by your side. What would it look like to stop pretending to be "perfect" and be ordinary? Instead of always feeling overwhelmed and alone, you might discover the beauty of a good, hard life grounded in the radiant hope of God's unending love. Life happens in the ordinary, after all.
