Book Summary: The Power of a Positive Mom

Editor’s Note: The Power of Moms is a website for mothers of all religious preferences. Our Spiritual Sundays section is a place where our authors can write about thoughts that are more spiritual in nature, and our goal is to gather a wide variety of perspectives. If you (or someone you know) has something to add to this section to help us reach a wider audience of mothers, please send the submission to [email protected] Thank you!

Title: The Power of a Positive Mom

Author: Karol Ladd

Basic Overview:

The entire book is broken into 7 Principles of application to be a Positive Mom. Each of those principles are delved into deeper over 2-3 chapters each. The Seven Principles of a Positive Mom are:

(1) The Power of Encouragement

(2)The Power of Prayer

(3)The Power of a Good Attitude

(4)The Power of Strong Relationships

(5)The Power of Your Example

(6)The Power of Strong Moral Standards

(7)The Power of Love and Forgiveness

In a light and encouraging tone the book is written very optimistically and is filled with wonderful insights and ideas to apply to your life to make daily steps to becoming more positive in your views as a mom, thus enabling you to experience more joy and improve your mothering even in the most difficult times.

With a heavy Christian emphasis, each chapter ends with a scripture passage to study from the Bible, a prayer, and an action that you can make that day to move forward.

Parts I liked best:

All of it. Though it was the wonderful quotes, stories and anecdotes that really cemented themselves in my mind and became my anchors during hard days to remember to be positive and choose how the day went. One of those particular quotes was found in Principle 7 from Mother Theresa; “Where does love begin? It begins at home. Let us learn love in our family. In our own family we may have very poor people, and we do not notice them. We have no time to smile, no time to talk to each other. Let us bring that love, that tenderness into our own home and you will see the difference.”

I loved that the entire book was in praise of mothers, the need for them and all that they are truly capable of. It was empowering. It buoyed up all that we stand for as deliberate mothers while addressing the struggles that can arise in our journey and how those struggles can make us stronger. There was on particular anecdote about a man who finds a caterpillar and decides to keep it so he can observe its’ transformation into a butterfly. Sure enough, with time the caterpillar wove it’s tight cocoon around itself and then the man waited. When the day came for the Caterpillar to emerge from its’ cocoon the man became concerned as he saw the butterfly struggling to break out of the cocoon. With the best of intentions, the man pulled out a small knife and gently cut back some of the cocoon enabling the butterfly to be free of its’ cocoon. The man’s happiness of seeing the butterfly free was quickly saddened however when he saw the the butterfly was not able to fly. You see, it is in the struggle of breaking out of the cocoon that the butterfly gains enough strength in their wings to be able to fly.

How this book made an impact in my life, especially as a mother (or why I just really liked it):

This book was a monumental help to supplying extra fuel to my days. Because this book is so easy to pick up and read (even when you only have time to read a paragraph or perhaps only a sentence or two!) it became my go-to when I was able to carve out a little “me time”. While I certainly did not agree with all of the author’s scriptural interpretations, I wholeheartedly agreed with her praise of mothers and the responsibility of their roles in society. It helped me to feel united with the hearts of other women who feel similarly to me about motherhood and gave me so many ideas on how to be a positive mom. The impact the book made as I was reading it has definitely continued long after I finished it. Take for example the story of the man and the butterfly. There have been several times that that story has served as a comfort and reminder for me in difficult times. It has also been a guiding aid as I exercise wisdom in knowing when to let my children work through particularly difficult times on their own, for the benefit of their own strength. This book made a definite contribution to my ability to accept challenges, keep a positive outlook, and savor the great things about motherhood as I propel our family forward.

Power of Moms is an Amazon Affiliate. If you link to and purchase a book we recommend on Amazon’s website, we will receive a small commission. However, we only make honest endorsements on products we know and use ourselves. Thanks for your support!

 

About Laura Hochstein

Laura is a wife, mother to three adorable littles ones, photographer, homeschool momma, lover of music and always up for exploring new places. While being a mom is far from perfect, she could not imagine herself in any other role. She considers it an honor to be a mom. After living abroad in Europe for 5 years, she and her family are trying their best to settle down a bit in Montreal Canada; though there isn't a week that passes without her kids asking if they can go for a plane ride to move to another country again. In her spare time she reads, runs, dances, sings, studies as many topics as she can and blogs about all the little details of family life (it's those little things that are always the best parts after all. Yet her favorite way of spending her time is with her family and date nights with her husband.