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Bestselling author of She's Gonna Blow (more than 125,000 copies sold) Julie Ann Barnhill reveals her flawed parenting moments--from the hilarious to the serious--and shares secrets that will help all moms uncover joy, sanity, and peace in their imperfections. With her trademark honesty and humor, she eases women down from the top of "Mount Guiltmore" and into the freedom to be their own unique brand of mom byacknowledging the things they don't have guilt over and embracing understanding how their own mothers influenced themdiscovering personal qualities that will make them great momsPractical insights and a sassy, realistic look at all mothers do, take on, accomplish, and carry with them provide women with a fresh perspective that can open up their lives to everything that God has for them and their children.Rerelease of Motherhood: The Guilt That Keeps On Giving

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 août 2011
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9780736941570
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0323€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Julie Barnhill

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Verses marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Verses marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Cover illustration iStockphoto/girlfrommars
Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Ste #200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunications.com .
CONFESSIONS OF AN IMPERFECT MOM
Copyright 2006 by Julie Ann Barnhill Published 2011 by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnhill, Julie Ann, 1965- [Motherhood]
Confessions of an imperfect mom / Julie Ann Barnhill.
p. cm.
Originally published: Motherhood. c2006
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7369-2951-6 (pbk.)
1. Mothers-Religious life. 2. Guilt-Religious aspects-Christianity. 3. Motherhood-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title.
BV4529.18.B37 2011
248.8 431-dc22
2011008906
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / VP-MS / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
What We ve Done Right
Part One: Guiltmore National Park
1. The Mountain Range in Your Backyard: Acknowledging Guiltmore
2. A Base-Camp Confession: Lots of Stuff I ve Felt Guilty About, For, or Over
3. A Base-Camp Lecture: The Geography of Guilt
Part Two: Exploring the Terrain
4. The Foothills of Wasgonnabe: The Trouble with Expectations
5. Mt. Shoulda: Things We Wish We d Done
6. Mt. Coulda: Things That Might Have Been
7. Mt. Woulda: Things We Would Tell One Another
8. Mt. Inconsistency: The Rule We Can t Live Up To
9. Mt. Unimaginable: When Your Worst Fears Come True
Part Three: The Trail to Graceland
10. The Downhill Trek: Sherpa Mom s Practical Guide to Getting Out of Guiltmore
11. Almost There: Learning to (Ouch) Let Go
12. Traveling Light: Hiking with Heart and Humor and Humility
13. Peace in the Valley: Putting Guiltmore in the Distance
Notes / Contact the Author
About the Author
To Patrick, Ricky Neal, and Kristen. I delight in your company and wouldn t change a thing.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the leadership and countless volunteers who make up the fabulous organization known as Hearts at Home. Its fearless leader, Jill Savage, gave me an opportunity to present a workshop at their national conference in 1998, and we ve been working as a team ever since.
As always (and forever), love and gratitude to my husband, Rick Barnhill, and our three incredible spawnlings: Kristen, Ricky Neal, and Patrick.
And of course, Anne Christian Buchanan-an editor par excellence! Working with you has been a professional treat, and you consistently sharpen me as an author and woman.
Last, but never least, Harvest House Publishers. Thank you, Bob Hawkins Jr., for believing once again in a message-my message in particular!-of humor and heart. What a delight to work with Terry Glaspey, LaRae Weikert, Carolyn McCready, and Betty Fletcher. And where, oh where, would my author self be without the savvy leadership of John Constance, Barb Sherrill, and their sales and marketing teams? Finally, a monstrous thank you and acknowledgment to the people at Harvest House who consistently deliver book orders on time and with a spirit of joy.
What We ve Done Right
Stop Now and Read This First!

After a particular speaking session in 2004, I knew what the opening salvo of this book needed to be.
The occasion was a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting. I had just spoken on the topic of motherhood and anger with just a few words about guilt added in, and the women broke off into pint-sized discussion groups. Watching them cluster together, I glanced down and considered the discussion questions I had suggested:
1. Do you ever find yourself looking to an author, teacher, or speaker for an ever-elusive final answer to your mothering problems?
2. Have you ever believed (or do you believe today) that good moms simply do not have (or discuss) certain feelings and situations?
3. Does regret and guilt take up a large or small portion of your thinking as a mom?
Gazing up from my sheet of paper, I began overhearing snippets of conversation from the groups:
I rarely feel absolutely sure about what I m doing as a mom.
You mean it s possible to be a mom and not feel guilt?
My daughter is three years old, and I seriously think I ve ruined her for life.
Ack! At this point I shouted for attention and changed the discussion rules altogether.
Okay, ladies, we re going to have a slight change of plans here. Instead of discussing the three questions on the paper I gave you, I want you to turn the sheet over and answer one question only: What do you not feel guilty about as a mother?
Well, you d have thought I d asked for nominations for the ugliest baby contest!
Absolute silence ruled in that small basement room.
No one spoke.
No one wrote down a thought.
No one moved.
You ve got to be kidding me, I thought. These women can t think of anything they ve done right as mothers? How sad is that?
I gently prodded, asking the women to recall special times spent with their children or to think back to the day before or even that morning and share at least one guilt-free moment of joy, laughter, confidence, and grace. And still we waited until at last one brave soul volunteered, Well, I don t feel guilty for giving my two-year-old son lots of hugs and kisses. Is that what you mean by something not being on my guilt list?
Yes! That was exactly what I meant. And with that one guilt-free admission, the dam burst wide open. One after another, the moms spoke up.
I don t feel guilty for not cooking dinner every night.
I don t feel guilty for saying I love you a million times a day.
I don t feel guilty for not wavering on discipline.
I don t feel guilty for not giving up.
I don t feel guilty for limiting the number of children I have.
I don t feel guilty for nursing my babies past nine months.
I don t feel guilty for saying no.
I don t feel guilty for putting my children s daddy first.
Each confession seemed to embolden the group as one toddler-draped mom after another approached me afterward and expressed her thanks for being forced to recall the things she had done right.
And that, in this book about imperfect motherhood, is where I want to take you first. Before we even survey the mountainous landscape of Guiltmore National Park, which I believe looms on the horizon of every mother s life, I want you to take a good, solid look at what you ve done as a mother that inspires absolutely no guilt at all.
I see you now, sitting with book in hand, hoping with everything you re worth that this will be it-the one book that will reassure you, answer all your questions, explain your screwups, and solve your worries and regrets. Perhaps you are ready to relay a hundred, a thousand, maybe ten thousand specific examples of what you have done imperfectly and why you feel so lousy about them.
If that s true, then this book s for you.
But not this chapter. See, this chapter is all about you and me facing the seemingly inexplicable reality that we haven t done everything wrong. That we all take many actions that are not only harmless but actually wonderful and wise. In fact, we have innumerable memories squirreled away in the quagmire of our maternal minds that are full of light and life, that indicate a mothering life well considered.
This is where I want us to begin.
Before we grapple with the various peaks of guilt and regret that loom on the landscape of our lives, I want us-I want you-to create that list of everything you have done right.
And I do mean everything. I m not playing around here, girls. This is serious business-motherhood-and more than anything else I want us to start our time with one another on the right foot. I don t think you need another author telling you what, in her opinion, you ve done wrong as a parent. And you certainly don t need me to add to your already (I m sure) lengthy I ve Got Guilt list.
No, as is the case with 99.9 percent of what I write, speak, and believe, my primary objective is to assure you right here, right now, that you are not alone.
You re not alone with your crippling guilt.
You re not alone when you second-guess nine out of ten things you decide.
And you re absolutely not alone when you do a great job as a mom-despite your many reservations.
Don t be surprised if making your list is a bit more difficult than you first expected. After all, when we assess our parenting skills, most of us have learned to think negatively rather than positively. Most of us could easily list 20 things we feel guilty about for each thing we did right. So take your time and think things through. But don t try to analyze or dissect just think of and list the things you have absolutely no guilt for doing, saying, or believing. They can be simple little specific things or big parenting policies. Small triumphs or big satisfactions. Thi