One Tough Mother: It's Time to Step Up and Be the Mom [Paperback]

Julie Barnhill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2007

Moms get a lot of advice from TV shows, magazines, friends, their own mothers, and more. But all of this well-meaning counsel tends to paralyze moms. They worry about their children's self-esteem, their health, and whether or not their children like them. They even agonize over scrapbooking every moment of development. Julie Barnhill says, "Enough already!" Unapologetically raucous, slightly irreverent, and refreshingly relevant, One Tough Mother exposes the mind-numbing, brain-draining, confidence-depleting minutia moms get stuck in. With humor and a sharp wit, Julie offers moms a dose of reality and a way to calm their fears about raising children. She encourages moms to straighten up, take back the control from their children, and stand firm on the nonnegotiables. With her help, any mom can become one tough mother.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

EXCERPT FROM CATALOG: Motherhood has been sliced and diced, reviewed and dissected. Yet I find myself writing to and speaking with hundreds of thousands of women a year--a large percentage being mothers--and being struck time and time again by consistent mothering tales of feeling out of control, ineffective, and more often than not, under the embarrassing thumb of a precocious toddler, headstrong preschooler, increasingly mouthy grade-schooler, or junior high know-it-all. Sometimes all four. All those websites. All those reality shows. All those books. All those CDs, DVDs, and ancillary teaching items still being paid off on a credit card, and yet many moms aren't convinced they know what they're doing when it comes to actually being the mom. Go figure. I believe this is where I scream at my blinking cursor and declare: enough is enough. It's time for a change--better yet it's time your spawnlings got a dose of long-lasting One Tough Mother change!

From the Back Cover

"Julie knows exactly what kids need--love and limits--and she demonstrates how to deliver both with ten no-nonsense principles that really work." --Dr. Kevin Leman, author of Making Children Mind without Losing Yours As a mom, you get a lot of advice. TV shows, magazines, friends, your own mother (and mother-in-law) are all telling you the best way to raise your kids. But all of this well-meaning counsel can paralyze you. Julie Barnhill says, "Enough already!" Unapologetically raucous and refreshingly relevant, One Tough Mother gives you ten nonnegotiable ways to stand firm and be the mom. With a sharp wit, Julie offers you a dose of reality and a way to calm your fears about raising children. She shows you how to • take joy in your child • say no like you mean it • stop overanalyzing every tiny detail • communicate truthfully and effectively with your child • save yourself from scrapbooking madness • and more You can be confident, loving, and in charge. Are you ready to become one tough mother? Julie Ann Barnhill is a popular speaker and the bestselling author of She's Gonna Blow! Real Help for Moms Dealing with Anger, as well as several other popular books that tap into the "everyday themes of everyday people." She has appeared on Oprah, NBC's The Other Half, CNN, and other national and regional programs. She lives in Illinois with her family.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Revell; Reprinted edition (September 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800732308
• ISBN-13: 978-0800732301
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,177,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every day is Mother's Day!, December 6, 2007

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Tough Mother: It's Time to Step Up and Be the Mom (Paperback)

Reviewed by Nicole M. Boals

Being a mother can make you a little bit crazy. Listening to all the advice from friends, family, and the nearly endless self-help books, can take that crazy to a whole new level. This book will help calm this craziness with intelligent and sensible advice with a huge dose of humor. It is a quick read that is hard to put down and is one parenting book that you will be very glad you read.

One Tough Mother gives no nonsense advice on how to be a strong woman who is a strong mother. Broken down into ten "non-negotiables," this book is packed full of great ideas on how to take back your sanity and build love, trust, and respect in your household. Smattered throughout the advice are real stories that give life and context to these ideas.

Seemingly common sense areas of parenting are sometimes so hard to remember or even feel comfortable with, and this book helps bring them into focus. With chapters like how to say no (I know can comfortably say no in several languages to video game playing) to how to start praying for your children, this book offers tips that every parent can use.

Throughout the book sidebars present great outside resources and concepts. These little quips and links offer some great ideas for additional research and topics. The book concludes with a great appendix that reminds you that you are a woman and as such, you deserve some self-care time and expense. It offers great tips on hair, skin, makeup and general upkeep that a lot of moms mistakenly put on the backburner.

Armchair Interviews says: Great advice, interesting stories, and laugh-out-loud humor, make One Tough Mother one awesome book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book for EVERY Mother!, September 24, 2007

By 

D. McIntosh "mcintosh2000" (Washington State, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Tough Mother: It's Time to Step Up and Be the Mom (Paperback)

If you have ever found yourself saying, "I've told you not to do that," or "Stop that," for that tenth time in 10 minutes, then this book is for you. Julie offers ten nonnegotiables in our mothering. Written in a fun conversational tone, you will see yourself in the first few pages of this book. After reading it, you too can become One Tough Mother!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Plastic Surgery?, February 1, 2010

By 

Anne (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: One Tough Mother: It's Time to Step Up and Be the Mom (Paperback)

I learned a lesson with this book. Don't buy a book for a friend unless you've read it yourself. Or rather. I won't buy a book unless I've read it first--from now on. I gave this book to a friend for Christmas. She enjoyed the first part, but then didn't say much about the rest. She lent it back to me (because I wanted to read it) and I was taken by surprise last night when I sat down with it.

The idea that we need to be firm with our kids and stand up and take control is a good and important one. But, the second half of the book didn't sit with me. She seemed to get side tracked. She mentions plastic surgery early on in the book and encourages moms to take care of themselves. I am okay with the encouragement to take care of ourselves. Yes, we do! It's easy to get lost in all of the things that we have to do for our kids. But, I never expected such a push for plastic surgery in the appendix. As moms, we struggle feeling like the grass is greener on the other side even though it isn't. God made us the way we are and rather than thinking we have to find a way to pay a lot of money to change our bodies, I think it is wiser to find peace and trust God that He created us the way He did. We need to learn to like who we are--not think we have to change our bodies by surgery in order to like who we are.

There are other parenting books that I would recommend before this one--whether you have compliant or strong willed children.