Book Review and Giveaway! Mastering the Mommy Track

As I write this, I feel like the master of nothing and everything. The person juggling five hundred tasks and dropping a couple balls along the way. ( And praying no one notices because they, too, are busy juggling.) This book review is also late. But that is the nature of my motherhood: sometimes stuff does not get done and that is just the way it goes.

I loved Mastering the Mommy Track, a book aimed at working mothers juggling career, children, husbands, after school activities, house work, meal prep and everything under the sun during this Great Recession. The book, written by the Master Mommy and Career Girl Erin Flynn Jay, looks at stores of real women, includes pieces of her own and wraps it all up with nonjudgmental, take-it-or-leave-it advice. There is not even an overtone of preachiness: just the opposite, I finished the book feeling both understood and enlightened.

These are interesting times, as Jay, points out: times when women are expected to contribute to the household income and while no one is clamoring for a return to the the days of 1950s housewife: women still manage their households and cook dinner and nurture children while being career girls and earners for their household.

Mothers have a lot going on. As a modern stay-at-home-work-at-mom I'd loved so much of this book! Here are my top five take-always from Mastering the Mommy Track:


  • Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the book. And I discussed my own transition from full time career girl and mother to my latest hybrid of freelance writing, yoga and stay at home motherhood. My take-away reading my own story: motherhood, well parenthood, changes everything. It is a transition, so don't resist it. You have to allow things to happen.
  • And when they do happen: communicate your concerns and your needs clearly, constantly and without fear with your spouse.
  • Find proportion rather than balance. Balance is impossible--it won't ever happen. But you can find even proportions of various activities that give you pleasure and activities that are required.
  • Never keep a score sheet comparing your contributions to your spouses. It is futile. Throw out the paper and realize: your are both working are for your family.
  • Whether you are a 9-5 working mom, an around the clock business owner, a part tim worker or a full time stay at home mom: we are all working moms. We work in and out of the home, in our communities, in our families and for our world. The lines blur and our stories are not so different after all.



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Comments

  1. I definitely need tips on figuring it out, and anticipating where the challenges will be.

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