The Myth Of The Perfect Mother: Rethinking The Spirituality Of Women

Rating:
Summary: Relief from the Guilt
Review: Carla Barnhill does an excellent job of expressing what many Christian women have felt for a long time, but were afraid to express publicly. Our guilt is often false guilt placed by churches and others. Also, I appreciate her support and focus on Christian Working Moms. Christian Working Moms are often a silent minority in the church. I would highly recommend this book for a new and refreshing perspective.

Rating:
Summary: very good
Review: this book is very very good. I have long thought that there was a link between Andrea Yates and the unbelievable pressure to be perfect that exists in certain pockets of christianity. I have also privately thought to myself the very words that the author uses about "the cult of the family" and "the parenting cult". people who would never consider themselves legalists are in fact very legalistic about family matters. that said I did have a couple of problems with this book. one is that far too much space is taken up with working mother guilt..probably because it is an issue that has impacted the author greatly. I would have appreciated a broader focus on more issues besides this one. breastfeeding is an ENOROUS issue. the whole "attachment parenting" subculture is also every bit as cultic as the "Ezzo" business. yes there are a few sentences about people being reamed for their baby sleep habits but anyone talking about mother guilt would be very remiss to fail to mention William and Martha Sears who is one of the biggest propagators of it. perhaps because he is a fellow contributor to CPT along with the author she steered clear of him. or maybe it was just an oversight...second the whole spanking issue....it has been my observation that those in christian circles who are divisive about spanking are those who do not...not those who do. perhaps like the Ezzo/Sears issue maybe this is because so many christians think in extremes rather than in balance it becomes polarized. I will say it: there are some children who just need s a spanking. all the nonviolent discipline rhetoric in the world will not change that. the author is very respectful to spankers she knows but it still feels like doublespeak. some kids never need a spanking and it is very easy to agree with the nonspanking philosophy if these children happen to be yours. that said, for some peculiar reason every christian book out there about spanking acts as if it is the punishment of choice all the time and has detailed training programs for spanking every time the kid displays a bad attitude or says "no". no wonder so many of these people whose kids react poorly to this jump to the no spanking wagon. it is a shame that the best philosophy of corporal punishment comes from someone who does not even claim to be a christian and that is John Rosemond. he states that spankings are most effective when they are very rare events: ie the kid knows that if he is spanked he has REALLY done it this time. and that most of the time other methods of discipline are more suitable to the situation. and that some kids never need it at all. I think that for a christian to be on the nonspanking fence is just as polarizing and divisive as they claim the spankers are. better to say that spanking doesnt seem to be what their kids need but they fully acknowledge that other parents may need to without pulling in secular anti spanking rhetoric. it gives a feel of talking out of both sides of the authors mouth.
aside from a few of these issues though, this is a good and thought provoking book...so many churches that are otherwise non legalistic heap piles of "shoulds" on families and parents. things that are not even in the bible and come about just by implication. and speak of Andrea Yates, I had been hoping for more discussion of the fringish beliefs that she espoused that are quite common in certain christian circles but that are not mainstream evangelical.