Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Mothering From Scratch - A Book Review

A quick side note - three book reviews in one day! I promised myself no more borrowing books from the library until I finished all of the books I had accepted for review at home. This is my last one and then library freedom! Woohoo!!

In preparation for adoption, I keep reading parenting books. Some are about child development, some are about discipline, and some are general motivation with a lot of rah rah. Some of the books are fairly general parenting books and others deal with a specific issue or topic. Based on the book's subtitle (Finding the Best Parenting Style for You and Your Family), I expected Mothering From Scratch to be one of the books that digs into specific parenting philosophies. While there were a few nuggets of wisdom, overall I felt like I was promised something that was never delivered.

First of all, I felt like the authors assumed that my reading material primarily consists of magazine articles or blog posts. Each chapter contains a "Lovin' Spoonful" which is a small sidebar of information. There were also numerous small quotes along the margins scattered throughout the book. The co-authors alternated who shared personal stories, which felt disjointed and kept me from really getting to know which kids belonged to which mother.

Second, the book wasn't really about finding the best parenting style for your family. I was hoping that the authors would present various parenting styles and discuss which styles are best for different personalities and temperaments and life experiences. Instead, the basic message of the book is that you should just do whatever you feel is best for your family. I agree with that but it's such a basic idea that I felt I wasted my time reading an entire book about it.

Scrolling through the Amazon and Goodreads reviews, it seemed most readers really enjoyed the book. It just wasn't a good fit for me. Thank you Bethany House for the free copy in exchange for my honest opinion. All thoughts are my own.

And just because this amuses me, I have to share this photo. This is the first time I've ever noticed the same stock photography being used on two different book covers.

1 comment:

Julie Fukuda said...

I recently read a book much the same about life choices. I could have read the list at the end and saved a lot of time.