Mothers Need Time-Outs, Too: It’s Good to be a Little Selfish--It Actually Makes You a Better Mother

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McGraw Hill Professional, 2008 M03 30 - 288 pages

Whether you’re the mother of toddlers or teens, work inside the home or out—if you’re exhausted from trying to be perfect, this book can help you. Mothers Need Time-Outs, Too uses hundreds of real-life stories and mom-tested tips to demonstrate how taking time-outs will transform your life. Practical and inspiring, this book will launch you on a voyage of discovery that takes you back to yourself, and it will help you become the best mother you can be by becoming the best woman you can be.

Written by moms, for moms, this book will help you create a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life for you and your family. The authors draw on their own extensive experience and that of hundreds of women around the world, and bring to light a variety of helpful resources--from cutting-edge studies to Eastern philosophies--to create this innovative, inspiring, and easy-to-use guide.

With this book, you'll learn how to

  • Live a more deliberate, more purposeful, more satisfying life
  • Say goodbye to the constant guilt of not measuring up by embracing your personal mothering style
  • Enjoy your children more and feel close to your husband again

The authors reveal their own unvarnished turning points, share stories they've gathered from the trenches, and present eye-opening research to show how a little selfishness can bring a whole new sense of purpose and energy to stressed-out modern mothers.

“Take some ‘me’ time. It’s good for you and your family. Want proof? Check out Mothers Need Time-Outs, Too by Susan Callahan, Anne Nolen, and Katrin Schumann, which gives voice to hundreds of moms who’ve done it.”
--Woman’s Day

 

Selected pages

Contents

From Trying to Be Perfect to Taking TimeOuts for Yourself
1
From Losing Yourself in Motherhood to Understanding Who You Are Today
31
From Perpetual Preoccupation to Appreciating the Moment
61
From Living in Perpetual Motion to Hearing Your Own Voice in the Silence
89
From Living Side by Side to Integrating Your Life Together
121
From Motherhood in Isolation to Creating and Providing a Support Network
153
From Never Putting Yourself First to Taking Care of Your Whole Self
181
From Living a Frenzied Life to Gaining Greater Control
217
From Being a Good Girl to Breaking a Few Rules
247
References
257
Index
263
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 79 - If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
Page 53 - You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Page 163 - It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Page 167 - Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Page 209 - The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.
Page 246 - We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
Page 63 - The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Page 248 - When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
Page 39 - People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

About the author (2008)

Susan Callahan, Anne Nolen, and Katrin Schumann are friends and mothers who live and work in the Boston area. Among them, they have ten kids and more than thirty-five years of experience raising children. They represent a range of parenting lifestyles, from stay-at-home mom to mom with a full-time career.

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