Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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!

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.

I'm the mother of an extremely spirited four year old. I have read alot of parenting books, and One Tough Mother kind of came across as a much weaker version of them Raising Your Spirited Child Rev Ed: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and EnergeticThe New Strong-Willed ChildTeach Them Diligently: How To Use The Scriptures In Child Training. This book is good for a laugh and you definitely feel like you've got good company in mothering difficult children, but it just didn't do much for me. It's a bit too general compared to other reads. To her credit though, She's Gonna Blow!: Real Help for Moms Dealing with Anger was life changing, and I owe my patient, loving yet firm style of motherhood mostly to her.

I loved this book because it finally gave me permission to question some of the things that clearly weren't working for me, but I didn't have the nerve to question them myself. I just kept growing more and more frustrated and ended up thinking that I wasn't cut out to be a parent, until I read this book and got some helpful way's of saying NO ... decided to get off of the vicious cycle of 'advice' seeking and feeling guilty because I didn't feel right about making life all about my kids. I feel a lot freer as a parent and less stressed out, better able to make decisions that I'm comfortable with. I really believe that God is using her experience to minister to other mom's like me. (by the way, I am the "ambivalent mom" :)

Just finished ordering a copy of this for my sister. This is One Tough Book to Put Down (there's your sequel, Julie!)

I know Julie - she goes to my church. Therefore, I can't possibly be impartial, right? Wrong. You think I agree with every word that's uttered in that building? Only doofuses do that. But, before I go on with my review, I thought I should let y'all know, in fairness, that I know Julie.

I would write a long review, but I'm busy parenting. So let me just say this: If you love your kids, and you love the Lord, and you want what's best for your kids, and you seek to do God's will, this is the book for you. Way to go, Julie.

Plus, the book is hilarious. I love Julie's candor, honesty (do those two words mean the same thing? I'm an English teacher and ya got ME!), and the conversationality of the words. I can hear Julie's voice as I read.

BUY THIS for yourself and for all, yes, ALL of your MOM FRIENDS. NO, not your MOM'S friends, your MOM friends. DO IT NOW. Good girl.

Holly (Tucker) White
Galesburg, IL