The market is saturated with parenting books—we all know that. So when a new book about the woes of motherhood debuts, you might wonder if it will offer a different perspective. We’ve all written about potty-training a million times. We talk about our wine glasses getting a little bit fuller all the time. I know, because I do it too.
I offered to read and review Melissa Mowry’s One Mother to Another: This is Just Between Us for a few reasons. I have been a fan and follower of Melissa’s blog One Mother to Another for a while, and I love her voice. So as a fellow writer (and mother) I wanted to support her. I also was genuinely interested in what angle she took—how she would differentiate her work from every other motherhood book on the shelf. And finally, I like when people give me free stuff. Especially stuff I really want. So I offered to review her book if she would send me a copy. Which she did. (There’s my disclaimer!)
So here’s the truth. This is why Melissa’s book is a success and how it is different from other books on the shelves in the parenthood section. She tells the truth—even the sucky parts. Even the parts you hope every other mother experiences but no one actually has the nerve to admit. She admits it. As you read One Mother to Another: This is Just Between Us, you will feel so much better about yourself as a parent. You will feel like you made a friend through these pages—someone who is saying to you: It’s okay that you cried in front of your kid and burned dinner and hate your life somedays and wonder if you’ll ever feel like enough. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re still an amazing mom.
Here are a few highlights from some of my favorite chapters:
Melissa talks about mothers still having needs, despite being… mothers. “I still reserve the right to have needs. I respect that my son is a person too, but his needs are equal to, not always more important than, my own.” How empowering is that statement?! I love that statement and I love her for saying it.
She makes it okay to be a “mail-it-in” mom, as she is one on Mondays. She doesn’t take the kids to fun library story hours or cook gourmet meals on Mondays. “Mondays are for pajamas until noon. On Mondays Curious George and Handy Manny are welcome visitors in our living room.” She tells us that we don’t have to be supermom every day, which is so refreshing to hear.
Melissa is open about her struggles to breastfeed her first child and offers the unique perspective that although this was a painful journey for, it was actually a gift. Her inability to do something that she so desperately wanted to do, that she had assumed would be easy and natural, that she believed to be a qualifier for the “good mother” title, changed her for the better. She now knows that breastfeeding is not the simple act she assumed it to be and that “there is so much more to being a good mother than breastfeeding.”
Too often we mothers get caught up in who is right / who is wrong or who has it harder / who has it easier between working and stay-at-home moms. Melissa, a SAHM, appreciates her mother, who worked throughout Melissa’s childhood. “Because you worked, I learned about what work-life balance looked like in practice.” Rather than engage in this tired argument, Melissa tells her readers—all of her readers, working moms and SAHMs, breastfeeders and bottle-feeders, that she loves us all and by the end of the book, we all love her too.
And finally, one of my favorite chapters is entitled “The Things Moms Carry.” The quote “We carry the burden of not being enough, for our children and our selves” truly resonated with me. Because it is so true—we carry so much as mothers. And we never feel like enough. But as you read One Mother to Another: This is Just Between Us, you also feel immense pride in yourself as a mother. And that maybe you are enough after all.
You will cry with Melissa as you realize what a gift motherhood is, even though it’s gut-wrenchingly hard. Even when you’re tired of all that you carry, you’ll carry it again tomorrow. Because you’re Mommy. And you’re damn good at it.
***One Mother to Another: This is Just Between Us can be found on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, among others. Check out One Mother to Another online for more information.
***I received an advanced copy of this book as compensation for writing this review. All opinions stated above are my own.