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HomeRaising Them Alone:: A Self-Assessment of One Mother's Single-Parenting |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Inspiring success saga of one woman's ability to nurture outstanding children Mar 20, 2009
Sally Becker had me laughing and crying as she shared her saga in raising her kids alone. In the book, I particularly liked hearing the voices of her children throughout, teaching Sally how to listen to them.
I believe Sally's strength stems from her ability to recognize that each child had different personalities and needs, and that as a mom, she needed to respond accordingly even if it meant going against her own intuitions or instincts.
Rather than your standard didactic self-help set of guidelines, this book demonstrates why and how a parent should adapt to their children's unique strengths and needs, teaching by example. Rather than preaching, Sally recorded anecdotes and lessons learned: the story of their lives together.
As a divorce mediator, I am always looking for inspirational works for my clients. I will strongly recommend "Raising Them Alone" to those in Sally's situation. Sally's protracted divorce is a strong case for couples to settle their divorces constructively, either in mediation or collaborative law.--Miriam Zimmerman, Ed.D., www.DivorceMediationGroup.com
 a quick and enjoyable read May 05, 2008
I enjoyed this book, self-published by a single mom who had been encouraged by her kids' teacher to write about how she successfully raised her 2 kids alone. The author is self-reflective and honest about her own pitfalls and how her parenting philosophy emerged. She shares some of her struggles with parenting and the pain of a very complicated and protracted divorce. However, the focus of this book is about her success and her joy in raising her children.
At times, she sounds a bit too self-congratulatory and contradictory. I found some of her approaches unrealistic for my own family, such as her very hands-off approach in raising her teenagers. Her observation that they avoided the drug/alcohol scene by not having medications in the house ("other than vitamins, aspirin, and Tums") seemed to be based on plain good luck that no one in her family ever needed anything else, or an illogical connection between use of legitimate medication and drug abuse! This self-published book appears to be edited only by the author and her family. Thus, at times the writing is unclear, sentences are hard to follow, and she often over-explains the obvious in illustrating her points.
But I very much respect her guiding philosophy to not live through her children, and to discover each one's unique potential and personality. I enjoyed reading this positive and optimistic book about single parenting!
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