Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters! Author: Visit Amazon's Rachel Macy Stafford Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0310338131 | Format: EPUB
Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters! Description
Review
“Rachel Macy Stafford’s post, “The Day I Stopped Saying Hurry Up,” was a true phenomenon on The Huffington Post, igniting countless conversations online and off about freeing ourselves from the vicious cycle of keeping up with our overstuffed agendas. Hands Free Mama has the power to keep that conversation going and remind us that we must not let our lives pass us by.”
— Arianna Huffington, chair, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books
About the Author
Rachel Macy Stafford has been providing readers with simple, non-intimidating, and motivating methods to let go of distraction and connect with their loved ones. Since starting the blog “Hands Free Mama” in 2010, Rachel’s work has been featured in USA Today, TIME.com, MSN.com, The Huffington Post, and Reader’s Digest. Her blog currently averages one million visitors a month. Rachel lives in Alabama with her husband and two children, who inspire her daily. Hands Free Mama is her first book.
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Zondervan (January 7, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0310338131
- ISBN-13: 978-0310338130
- Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I really really really wanted to like this book, but I just don't. It's not so much a guide as it is a compilation of personal anecdotes about moments the author enjoyed with her children "hands free." And as a mother, I find the credibility of these moments to be questionable. Or maybe it's just the other moments that are missing - the real ones - the ones that all parents experience that aren't sparkly and quiet and loving and fun. The book is seriously lacking in reality. If I took the book at face value, and adopted all her suggestions, then I would never have time for sleep or for myself. I would be spending all my time (all 3ish hours I get with my kids after work) gazing into their eyes, and snuggling with them on the couch, and kissing their sweet smelling heads (which would require me to give them a bath), and letting them help me make the salad for dinner, and talking about each and every paper in all 3 of their school folders all the while postponing "unnecessary" tasks. Then I would read them extra books at bed time, and give them an extra snuggle, and then come down stairs to gaze lovingly into my husbands eyes while we have a meaningful conversation or sit together to do something that doesn't involve watching television and THEN I suppose I would tackle all those "unnecessary" tasks like dinner dishes, lunch packing, and laundry. But, according to Stafford, I am also supposed to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. And none of this even accounts for my kids' mood at the time. Her children are seemingly perfect, because there is no mention of how to gaze into the eyes of a first grader who is having a melt down because she is tired.
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