“Mom in the Mirror”

I read a book that’s aimed at women, mothers, and young women. And it’s a book that should be read by men, fathers, and young men.

It’s a book about women and their attitudes about their bodies, before, during and after – even long after – their pregnancies. It’s about the culture we live in, and what it tells women they should think about their bodies. It’s about what women will do to meet those cultural expectations. And it’s about a different path women (and men, indirectly) can take, and likely should take.

Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty, and Life After Pregnancy, by Dena Cabrera and Emily Wierenga, is the book. It’s important to read. I learned things I didn’t know, about my own mother, my wife, and my daughter-in-law.

“We live in a society that demonizes fat,” they write; “meanwhile, we are more overweight than ever before. Every day at least ten million women deny themselves acceptance and love by abusing food in some way, shape, or form. Clearly, something is wrong.”

Something is wrong, and it’s not a simple fix. Cabrera and Wierenga walk the reader through the complexities, which can include eating disorders, the influence of a woman’s own mother, anxiety, the changes a woman’s body experiences, the demands of pregnancy and childrearing, the stages a woman’s body goes through from childhood to adulthood, competitiveness with other women, balancing marriage with motherhood, and many other aspects. And they offer encouragement, guidance, and resources on how to get help.

And their underlying message is itself about encouragement and hope: learn to love, starting with yourself.

Cabrera is a licensed clinical psychologist and eating disorder specialist, working at the Rosewood Centers for Eating Disorders in Wickenburg, Arizona. Wierenga is a married mother of two living in Canada, who battled anorexia and told her story in Chasing Silhouettes. (I reviewed Chasing Silhouettes here and did a two-part interview with Emily for The High Calling and here.)

Mom in the Mirror is a book whose time is now. Women and mothers need it. So do men and fathers.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Dena Dyer’s “Grace for the Race”

The entire time I was reading Dena Dyer’s Grace for the Race: Meditations for Busy Moms, I had the picture of my daughter-in-law in my mind. The daughter-in-law with the 2-year-old and the infant. The daughter-in-law whose idea of heaven has evolved to a 10-minute shower during the time both boys might be asleep at the same time.

It’s a funny book, this Grace for the Race. It’s a funny book – but also a wise book, written by a mother who has not only been there, but is still there.

Every wonder why all the neighborhood kids cluster at our house and clean out your refrigerator?

Do you ask yourself the question where did this flood of emotion and tears come from?

Do you notice how you’re the only mother in a t-shirt and jeans when you drop the kids off at school – while the other mothers are dressed for tea with the Queen?

Have you tried to sneak the sleeping toddler from the car seat to his bed without waking him up?

Do you discover you’re using exactly the same threats as your mother did – the ones you swore you would never use with your own children?

Dena Dyer has.

Dyer is an author, writer, speaker, and editor for The High Calling – and most importantly, a wife and mother. (She blogs at Mother Inferior.)

The book is designed for a quick read. Each meditation takes about a minute to a minute-and-a-half to read. Each is structured around a story and followed by “Notes from the Coach” – Bible verses that apply to the particular situation. The mediations are grouped into nine thematic sections – Training Well, Warming Up and Stretching Out, The First Lap, Using Proper Equipment, Hopping over the Hurdles, Handing It Off, The Final Stretch, Crosssing the Finish Line, and On the Podium.

It looks like a simple book – but like motherhood, it’s anything but simple. What Grace for the Race should do more than anything else is provide encouragement: mothers, you’re not alone. Someone has gone through this before. And kept her sanity. Or at least most of it.

First published in 2004, it’s been reissued as an e-book by Patheos Press. (I thought of my daughter-in-law here, too – it would work perfectly on her iPad, except the two-year-old knows the pass code and she hasn’t had time to change it.)

Related:

The High Calling has published an excerpt from the book, Operation Enduring Sleep.