Customer Reviews

How to Manage Your Mother: Understanding the Most Difficult, Complicated, and Fascinating Relationship in Your Life

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author, psychoanalyst wife of actor John Cleese, has access to many celebrities, and I found that the book was entertaining for this reason more than it was enlightening as far as improving my relationship with my mother. The stories ran a wide gamut, and it was comforting to know that so many other people (including celebrities John Cleese, Lauren Hutton, Stephen Sondheim, Mike Nichols, Terry Jones, etc.) have troubled relations with their moms as well, but I didn't particularly find my mother in here. I guess she is uniquely troubled :-)

It is an interesting and quick read whether you are interested in your relationship with your mother, your mother-in-law or your children, but you should not expect this book to solve your problems. It may get a conversation going though, and that is a good start.

I was embarrassed for the author, especially considering her profession; this is the work of a person with painfully obvious self-esteem issues. It's no coincidence that many of this book's reviews point out that the author (who evidently needed some help to write it) is the wife of actor and former Monty Python member John Cleese. (One can almost hear, in the background, the author whining "Hon-ey, how come you never help MY career? I'm tired of just being a shrink!" And John anxiously responding "I'll talk to the publishers, sweetheart; don't worry, they'll love it.") While the book isn't bad, it's quite superficial, and might not have been published had the author not filled it with vaguely relevant anecdotes about her (or her husband's) B-and C-list pals and their reminiscences about their mommys. It's difficult to understand why an author of such a book would find it necessary (or even appropriate) to provide the full names of each of these folks, except to entice readers who can't get enough of any scrap of information about, say, Lauren Hutton, or who are fascinated to discover that actors have less-than-perfect relationships like everyone else. One can't help but wonder why the author, who would almost certainly never have had these clients without her husband's show-biz connections, feels the need to try to capitalize on them in this way as well. In any event, there are many books that offer much more insight and practical advice on how to resolve some of the problems that often arise out of the mother-child relationship.

UPDATE:

This book's primary selling point--the author's marriage to celebrity John Cleese--is no more. Cleese is said to have remarked after the divorce that marrying the author was one of the two things he wouldn't have done if he had his life to live over.

I enjoyed reading Alyce Faye Cleese's book on the mothering relationship. My mother has been dead for many years but the relationship lives on thru memories, thru my relationships with my children and thru other important relationships. The ten steps in the back of the book are especially helpful in dealing with anyone in your life. I bought a copy of this book for each of my children in hopes that it would facilitate better understanding between all of us. The main message of this book to me was mothers are people too and to have an adult to adult relationship with them you must move beyond your child-like view. Great read, hope another book follows this one soon.

Well, everyone has a mother... Some mothers are good, some bad, some indifferent, but their impact on our lives is with out equal. I was lucky, my mother was one of the better ones... Even so, I still had problems with in my own life, that related to my relationship with her and her perseption of me. This book was a great help, I even gave my mum a copy to read! It's honest and caring approach struck just the right note. The book is based on a seires of interviews that the author did with various people in all walks of life and interspersed with helpful anicdotes and good sense suggestions. I highly reccomend it.

This is often a heartbreaking book about maternal abuse and rejection, but it is also about surving tears and trauma. When a child is born it must have milk and protection in order to live.Soon it craves the intangible---perfect love.To a newborn and a toddler,perfect love is immediate response to needs and wants. Later, perfect love is more complicated. Since we are human, there is no perfect love. As a result, the relationship between mother and child is doomed to some disappointment from the start. In interviews with a variety of people in all arenas of life,this book covers the wild flucuations between mothers whose imperfect love is well meaning and those mothers who are truly barbaric. Alison is one of the subjects who suffers beatings,beratings and broken bones at the hands of her hateful mother.At her mother's death, Alison is still trying to extract love.Pathic as it is, Alison survives and finally feels liberated by the notion that:"We need to understand that loving our mother ia an option,not a requirement.Grasping the truth is an important step in relieving the guilt we suffer is we do not love our mother." We can see how a man like Colin Powell's mothering affected him. His mother expected effort and decency. She did not pressure but she did expect positive behavior and attitude. The on going discussion of whether "nuture or nature" is more important is perhaps an underlying theme in these pages.The answer is clearly a combination of both.The answer is also that sensitive and professional analysis and therapy help. "How to Manage Your Mother" deals with confronting all sorts of issues about you maternal relationship. It also helps you confront her death. In a chapter that deals with other people in our lives that stand in for absent mothers, relatives or household help, a woman at her mother'r funeral asks a long time family helper why her mother never loved her. The resonse surprized her. Her said,"I do'nt know, but it almost broke my heart when you were a child." The woman was relieved in a sad sort of way because she knew her mother had not loved her as child, but everyone else had told her the opposite.Forgiveness is key.If our mothers were unable to love and accept us with our imperfections,"we have to accept her as she is with her imperfections. If we cannot, we are prepeating the pattern. If we can, we are breaking the pattern and moving to a healthier relationship with our mother." At the end of the book are ten steps for improving you relationsgip with your mother. They are well worth heeding, because it cautions us to remeber that managing your mother is about managing ourselves.

If you only buy one book this year - make it How to Manage Your Mother! It is worth every cent! Through the stories of the lives of famous public figures and unknowns alike, the writing of Alyce Faye Cleese and Brian Bates evokes painfully poignant as well as hilariously funny memories of childhood - you will shed tears of nostalgia and of joy. Whether you loved your mother or hated her, this book is for you. For me, it made sense of not only my relationship with my mother, but put my relationship with my own children in perspective too. From it's 'funny mother' stories to it's sheer common sense advice, How to Manage Your Mother will make you see the most significant woman in your life in a very different light. Highly recommended.

This book is a delight. Alice Faye Cleese has provided us with so many examples of relationships that you are certain to find your own near enough parallel. This book is amazingly instructive and entertaining. I would recommend it to even those who have or have had wonderfully compatible parent-child experiences to better understand how this happened to be the case. Cleese's commentaries are both wise and witty.

Alyce Cleese has written at once a most insightful and a most human account of the complexities involved in that journey we must all take toward knowing our mothers, both in themselves and in our difficult relationship to them. This book is a must reading for all who would want to know themselves better, for Cleese shows the connections between self and mother in a most penetrating way. Drawing from a variety of sources, including many of the rich and famous, Alyce Cleese is able to explore humurously and with great intelligence that one bond which is both our major heritage and unavoidable destiny.

Excellent study on mother/child relationship that allows thereader to reflect on his or her own, often complex, relationship with"Mom". It also gives the reader insight into how this all important relationship affects the way one intereacts with others throughout life. For this reader, it brought back long forgotten memories and reminders of lessons learned at a mother's knee. A very good read.

How to Manage Your Mother is a valuable self-help book that reads like a who-dun-it. Psychologist Alyce Faye Cleese, wife of British actor John Cleese, has created a very usable, practical approach to facing issues that inevitably arise when we deal with our mothers, and at the same time has managed to do so in captivating storytelling fashion. Spend some time looking at the Who's Who ofthe credit page; then figure out whose mother belongs to whom. By the time you reach the practical 10 step approach at the end, you'll be ready to face your own mom with a brand new perspective.