The new edition of Mojo Mom is a classier affair.  When I heard Amy speak, she admitted that with the first book she was kind of talking to herself, and it shows when the books are compared side by side.  The earlier edition does also reflect more of her reality as a stay-at-home mom to that point.  While I enjoyed the original version, I can see why Amy wanted to rewrite it.  The book does seem more up-to-date, which is a reflection of the kinds of issues that have been discussed by society at large in the last few years.  While some chapters seem virtually untouched, others are completely rewritten.

I’m very glad Amy rewrote the introduction of the chapter “Securing Your Financial Future.”  The previous beginning did not come off well and made it seem as though the chapter was not really her work.  I’m also glad that the chapter “Sisters Are Doing It For Each Other” and the stories from it have not made a reappearance.  While the stories were inspirational, they didn’t add very much to the book and struck me mainly as filler.  And one story wasn’t even about a mom!

While I do like the cover art from the first book, the new book is definitely more pulled together and restful looking.  In fact, I can only come up with two things I liked better about the first book: one, the picture of the tarot card is smaller (I would prefer no picture, and actually no mention of tarot cards), and two, the new edition doesn’t have the valuable suggestions for keeping a resume fresh.  Perhaps that was part of the effort to make the book more valuable for both working and stay-at-home moms, but I think it’s a loss.

In the chapter A Mother is Born, Amy says that motherhood involves constantly changing challenges. I would like to add that this is true even when the day-to-day parenting is over and your child is grown-up.  I also share Amy’s annoyance at working celebrities who claim they would rather chuck it all be a mom.  I heard Shania Twain say once that if she had her way she would just be with her husband and children in Switzerland, and I responded, “Who’s stopping you?? Just go!”

Amy shares one mom’s advice to another who was expecting twins to “get as much help as you can reasonably afford.”  As a mom of twins, I say, “Get as much help as you can even if you think you can’t afford it!”  Taking care of my newborn twins basically by myself took years off my life, and I don’t recommend it.  I even had a professional doula offer me her services for a great discount and I didn’t do it because we couldn’t afford it.  I don’t know what I was thinking!

I agree with Amy’s advice in the chapter The Early Months of Motherhood that you should read a variety of parenting resources.  This was a problem for me when I was only receiving advice from LLL-approved sources that did not address my needs.

I was glad to see Amy address the “subconscious mom-radar” that we all have.  I experienced this clearly on a road trip back when I only had two children.  My 14 month old daughter was asleep, and then my 7 year old also unexpectedly fell asleep. I could feel a buzz in the back of my head just kind of relax as I got the chance to just focus on driving.  It’s even more important to have chances to turn off the mom-radar if you are an introvert, especially if your child is an extravert!

In the chapter, Banking the Embers of Your Self, Amy talks about noticing that your energy and attention are coming back.  As many readers of my blog know, I was speaking German with my younger children and planned to speak to the baby in German too.  But just before he was born, I felt like I couldn’t anymore.  I was so tired! And then after he was born, I didn’t want to speak German at all. I felt like I could barely speak English.  So I went with my feelings and stopped.  When he was six months old, I was lying on the bed nursing him and all of a sudden I thought, “I miss German!”  It was as though something switched on, and I started studying again and speaking a bit.  A month or so after that, I thought, “I miss Spanish!” (my other language).

I had to laugh when Amy mentioned a “weekly hour in worship” as a possible way to center and have silence, because it reminded me of the Everybody Loves Raymond episode when Ray is having a crisis of faith.  He asks Debra, his wife, why she goes to Mass every week.  She begins her answer quite strongly – “I go to thank God for you and the kids” – and then trails off as she says, “and to ask Him for strength to make it through another week with you and the kids…”

While I like Amy’s metaphor of aikido for a parenting style, as I prefer not to engage and escalate myself, I do not like the portion of The Prophet that she quotes.  My children are actually my children.  They do come through me, but also from me and from my husband. 

What I like so much about Mojo Mom is that it focuses on the whole person.  Mothers need to be integrated, not denying either that they are mothers or that they are also people. In the past, I veered too far toward denying myself as a person without even realizing I was doing it.  There’s no doubt that beginning to work part-time, while taking care of 6 children, homeschooling them, and dealing with college applications while also being pregnant, complicated my life.  However, it brought benefits to all of us that are worth it in the long run.

Amy points out that motherhood is not a job.  I would add that one cannot really make a career out of it.  By the time my youngest child turns 18, I will have had a minor child for nearly forty years.  But if I don’t do something else during that time, what will I be left with?  Making a career out of grandmotherhood?  Amy is entirely right to separate motherhood from work.  However, I think it’s also important to stress that we are our children’s only mother, and (hopefully!) our husband’s only wife.  Another employee can be hired, but I am my children’s only mother, and my absence in their lives would have a profound effect, whereas a company would just hire someone else.  This actually is also an argument for entrepreneurship and realizing your own unique vision like Amy did with Mojo Mom.

There is a chapter focusing on fathers, and while I think it is pretty good, I do not hold “equally shared parenting” as an ideal.  I have read some of the information that Amy has mentioned on her blog, and I find that it’s not really for my husband and me.  Especially in the very early years, I do not leave my children very much (if at all).  I breastfeed exclusively, and since we live so far from our activities, it’s usually not feasible to leave the baby home.  As the children get older, I do most if not all of the homeschooling as well.  After the twins came, my husband was more directly involved in the care of the children because, with three children 2 years old and under, we had reached the point where I could not do everything myself.  Then when I started to work, he did have some more time with the children, and I also began to understand what it was like to work every day.

Amy encourages getting involved and becoming a “naptime activist” for whatever cause you feel strongly about.  As a member of MomsRising.org, Amy promotes an agenda for mothers.  As I was reading their website, I found myself wondering if they realize that there are moms that are very much against some of the things they want.  There is no “moms’ vote” and it isn’t as easy as getting organized so our voices are heard.  The voices are saying different things!  Moms belong to every political party and have many different viewpoints.  For example, I don’t want public universal preschool.  In the jobs my husband has had, equal pay for equal work was the law.  I would like to see more support for parents who decide to stay at home with their children.  My Canadian friend tells me that citizens there receive payments from the government for all children under 5, which they can use for preschool or to help Mom (or Dad) stay home.  The way Sarah Palin and her family were treated also does not encourage moms to step out, voice their opinions, and run for office, any office.  I read so many comments criticizing her mothering and her choices!

Amy has written a good, helpful guide so that moms don’t get lost in the world of motherhood.  I would like to see a similar guide for moms who homeschool, because that choice has a huge impact on the issues Amy talks about.  She has one child who began going to preschool at age 3, at which point she had some time she could dedicate to herself, her writing, and developing her career.  My youngest child will graduate in 2026, when I will have been homeschooling since 1997, and I will be 55.  In some fields that would earn me retirement with a pension!  One of my friends once told me that she figured once all her dc were graduated, she could just get a job at Walmart and that would be $20,000 a year they didn’t have before.  As difficult as it is eking out time to work on my own projects and develop my own career, the thought of working at a job like that in my old age is pretty good motivation!

Thanks, Amy, for your contribution to the world of motherhood!