Customer Reviews

Mama's Got a Fake I.D.: How to Reveal the Real You Behind all That Mom

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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I have some serious issues with the typical messages the church sends to moms. But it's hard to question those messages without being accused of being a bad mom. So that's why I loved this book. Caryn has provided a resource (for moms and dads and well, anyone who has to relate to moms ever...) that helps get past some of those false messages and affirm moms' true identity in God's eyes. And she does it with humor and encouragement throughout.

I found myself reflected on the pages of this book. I know I have tried to pass off my fake id - attempting to fit into a one-size-fits-all motherhood mold. Caryn pointed out though the hypocrisy in encouraging my kids to develop as unique individuals while I gave up my identity at the motherhood door. That's not the sum of who God created me to be, and if I want to truly follow him I need to claim my full identity. Moms shouldn't feel guilty to be themselves, explore their gifts, and follow Christ. Caryn affirms that it's okay to be more than a mom, be upset at the stupid ways our culture treats moms, and admit our frustrations as moms. She affirms that we are not alone in dealing with the loneliness and loss of self that plagues the modern American mother. And that people who think that moms have all the free time in the world are just clueless.

But at the same time, this book provides resources in learning how to be content as a mom. This doesn't involve striving to be someone you are not (including the perfect domestic goddess mother). It doesn't limit mothers or try to strip them of their God-given talents and identity. But it does involve learning to be grateful for what we have right now - being thankful in all circumstances. But this is a contentment that also doesn't allow us to be held back by perceived limitations or our own insecurities. But to simply allow ourselves to be affirmed in who we truly are - and extend that affirmation to others. It's a call to moms to discard our fake ids and to question the expectations placed upon us (often by ourselves). This isn't about being selfish or self-consumed, but about being real. Being ourselves is just far healthier, more spiritually authentic, and provides a better example for our kids anyway.

So go buy the book - give it to all your friends, pass it out to your playgroup, give it to the church library - it's a book that needs to be read.

(and btw - the book cover actually isn't hot pink, it's a nice shade of red. Just thought I'd mention that for all of you who are like me and hate women's books that are pink...)

This book brought me a lot of comfort and insight. I am not alone in my search to "known." This would be a great small group book.

As mothers we can feel riddled with guilt over all that we are not doing to be the perfect mom. Caryn Rivadeneira speaks to those issues in this interesting book. She challenges us as women to challenge the stereotypes that hold us back from being all we're meant to be.

As women we may feel in competition with other moms to be the one who "has it all together". Caryn encourages us to let the real us show and to take down those masks that we hide behind. Other moms need us- for our nurture and encouragement. And who knows what we're going through better than another fellow mom.

This is a great book for reading with a friend or group of ladies and then discussing how you can be a support to one another. Some great questions for discussion are included that I think I'm going to use with my own group of friends.

As the book wraps up, Caryn admonishes us to "affirm another mom". I love this point and agree wholeheartedly. MOPS is an organization that really helped to do this for me when my daughter was a little toddler. I appreciated the wisdom and guidance of other moms as well as the "I know what you're going through" laughs and sometimes tears that we shared. Be the real you. That's where God's anointing rests.

Review by Shari Dolleman

As a husband and dad, I found this book to be a jewel. Well-written, witty, intelligent and hilarious at times, it kept me reading and learning the fake i.d. world my wife is in (and to which I often unknowingly contribute). The insights are making me a better husband - one that sees my wife as more than a mom and makes room for her real, God-given identity to flourish.

Caryn Dahlstrand Ribadeneira offers readers a guide to being the spiritual person God intended us to be. "God created us to bear His image in all of life, not just in one area." "Too often, those of us who wish others could see us as more than moms keep quiet about it, out of typical mom guilt and church-induced shame."
God made you a unique person. Becoming a mom does not change that. While motherhood is challenging, time consuming, and fulfilling, it does not change who God created you to be. Before your children were born, you existed; you were capable of thinking, dreaming, and planning. That does not stop with motherhood. Unfortunately, many women feel guilty for wanting more out of life than motherhood. Sometimes the church itself perpetuates that feeling of shame and guilt for not being satisfied to be "just a mom."
Rivadeneira writes in an easy-to-understand style. She adds just the right amount of humor to her text to keep a smile on readers' faces. She has included questions at the end of each chapter to keep you thinking. This would be a great study for a young mother's group. She also furnishes the address to a blog, where you can discuss this book with other women.

Caryn echoes many of the thoughts and issues I've struggled with since becoming a mom six years ago. I've only read the introduction, but I can safely say this is a must-read. Buy it for yourself. Buy it for others. It's time for all of us--women, men, pastors, etc.--to talk about how we have viewed motherhood and whether or not those views are biblical. Caryn opens up the dialogue in an honest and refreshing way. I'm looking forward to reading more, discussing it with people in my church and community, and seeing how God uses Caryn's voice to impact His kingdom. He is already using her voice, along with the voices of many other brave, intelligent women who write about and address these issues, to impact me.

I just reread this book and again found it encouraging, funny, and insightful. I also struggled with my identity when I first became a mom and even though my children are not babies any more it is still a challenging balance between self and motherhood.

"Mama's Got a Fake I.D.," by Caryn Dahlstrand Rivedeneira, is a great book for moms, anyone who has a mother, knows a mother, or has an identity to read. It is so easy to loose ourselves, our personal unique identities, in the midst of other's perceptions of us. Even as a twenty something, single, not even close to having kids yet individual I learned a lot from this book. Rivedeneira poses questions to the reader that will surely make you think.
My favorite and most thought provoking question she throws out is "What do others need to know about you to know the real you?" That one had me thinking for quite a while. This book is well worth it in that it will surely aide in personal growth! With questions, mom stories, and the straight up sometimes not so easy truth you will be taken through a journey. Caryn, you should know that I actually like correcting grammar too, I live in Wisconsin and love it, and your Romania story touched me because I have heard very similar stories to it. (My uncle is a missionary in Romania). There is your start to getting to know the real me.

On a quiet morning in mid-March of 2008. A fellow professor and I were softly chatting in a library of the university where we served as professors. Both of us had been encouraged by mentors from early on throughout our academic careers, about our potential for contributing to the academic community, about charting new territories for women scholars. And we loved academia. We loved the life of the mind. And we never thought, in all our years of learning and studying and teaching and writing, that our gender would ever stand in our way. Both the feminists and our fathers had taught us that we could be anything we wanted to be, that the world was ours for the taking, that we were only limited by the things we never chose to do. But on that March morning, we secretly admitted that we didn't feel that the academic world was all we wanted out of life--we didn't just want to be scholars and writers and professors--we wanted to be mothers. And we wondered how on earth such two demanding, seemingly opposing spheres of life could ever be reconciled and how we could participate fully, incarnationally in both worlds. I remember the tension building as we talked, as our minds scrambled for answers to what we thought were new questions. "The problem," I said, "is that there are no maps."

Exactly one year later, I gave birth to my daughter. Motherhood is all and more that I ever dreamed it could be, but tension I felt that March morning remains. Motherhood and academics and writing don't always meld. It's hard to transition from diaper changes to dissertating on the dynamics of spiritual formation. It's a strange, foreign, and sometimes stark borderland where I often check and recheck the path I have chosen. (Did I really invest 13 years for a PhD to spend copious amounts of time every single day force-feeding my daughter-with-no-appetite?) But fortunately, Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira, in her recent book, Mama's Got a Fake ID, has provided me with a map. In a chatty, friendly way, Caryn addresses the identity crisis that many (if not all) women face when they become mothers.

Caryn's book contains three main parts. In Part One, she unpacks all the various reasons that women lose their identities when becoming mothers including stereotypes that society place on mothers and losing sight of who God designed us to be, as human beings with individual giftedness that reaches beyond our roles as mothers. In Part Two, Caryn looks at seven ways to uncover--or rediscover--our core identity: overcoming false guilt about our gifts, finding and rooting your identity in Christ, discovering who you are in God's eyes (your God-given likes, dislikes, passions, interests), learning to describe and introduce yourself to others in ways that acknowledge both your giftedness and how God knows you, acknowledging, accepting, and even treasuring your limitations, and admitting that you're not perfect. In the final portion of the book, Caryn advises her readers to look beyond themselves to see how they can be a blessing to other moms.

Mama's Got a Fake I.D. is a candid, thoughtful, and fun meditation on the tensions mothers face when their passions and giftedness extends beyond the home. She provides questions to help those women whose identities were buried long ago under piles of grocery lists and laundry baskets and family schedules. One of the most profound and moving chapters for me personally was the chapter on treasuring limitations. As a person with high achievement standards, accepting the limitations imposed by motherhood is a tremendous effort, but Caryn's book gave me freedom to not only accept these limitations but embrace them. But probably the best thing about the book is its balance: Caryn denigrates neither motherhood nor giftedness outside the home, but rather brings the honor due to them both. A highly recommended read for new and more seasoned moms.

I'm a mom of two middle schoolers and an author of two devotionals for mothers which means a couple things --- a) I'm halfway through my mothering years and b) I've had the chance to read a lot of books on parenting in those years, and I have never, and I mean never, felt a connection to an author of a mothering book like I have with Caryn Rivadeneira. Within the first few pages, I was thinking, Wait, I'm not the only one who thinks there's more to life than being a mom! Don't get me wrong - I love my kids, but there's so much more to me that I feel God is calling me to pursue, and Caryn gives each one of us moms the permission and encouragement to do so. I highly recommend this book to any mother wondering where she fits.

Elisabeth K. Corcoran, author of Calm in My Chaos and In Search of Calm