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

by Julie Barnhill (Author)
Key Phrases: One Tough Mother, Ricky Neal, These Things (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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.

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!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Revell (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 (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,414 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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)

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!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Kind of a letdown after reading She's Gonna Blow, August 21, 2008

By	luvmylilgirl (Eastern Washington) - See all my reviews

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.