12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know

Last Saturday, Daddy V had to work. Instead of rotting at home and did nothing, I decided to bring Little Edison to Bishan Public Library.

Bishan Public Library has a vast variety of children and preschooler books. Their children’s collection is located at Basement 1. There are children’s tables and chairs, activity room as well as multimedia stations.

I asked Little Edison to pick up a book for me to read with him. He looked around and he picked up a few books. We sat on the colorful stools and read the books together. It’s amazing how he can spend almost one hour in the library reading books with me. He has really good attention span.

I browsed through the family and parenting collection and this book caught my attention. It’s called 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know, by Dr. Michele Borba. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve read a parenting book. So, I borrowed it from the library.

It’s indeed a very interesting book – packed with practical approaches to parenting we need to know to be a “real mom” to great kids instead of going crazy on the supermom track. The tone of this book is warm, encouraging and hopeful.

Dr. Borba uses the first part of her book to explain what a “real mom” is as well as the “sacrificial mom.” This is one of the examples that she highlighted in her book:

“We’re no longer just managing our kids’ lives: we’re micromanaging their existence, right down to the very last detail. In doing so, we’re moving even further away from what really matters when it comes to good mothering.”

“All our obsessive and hyper mothering is not helping our kids become happy and mature young adults and may in fact be doing them more harm than good.”

She defines this as “over-parenting” and she believes that this trend is ultimately harmful to the children.

The second part of the book spells out Dr. Borba’s twelve simple secrets of real mothering. In the book, she includes testimonials from real mothers that she interviewed during her research.

I enjoy reading this book. It is very thought provoking. I’m going to share with you some of the interesting pointers from this book as I progress through it.