Lose the Guilt, Love Your Instincts

If the latest "breakthrough” child-development theory, parenting technique, or child-appropriate diet makes you worry or groan (or just want to lie down for a nap), it's time to make way for Momfidence! Paula Spencer, parenting expert and mother of four, provides refreshing, down-to-earth proof that most of the business of raising confident, healthy children involves nothing more complicated that trusting your instincts, using common sense, and above all, hanging on to your humor.


Momfidence! is:

•Using "perfect” only to describe such wonders as a ripe peach, a cloudless day at the beach, or a husband who does diapers and dinner. . . It has no application whatsoever in describing motherhood.

•Recognizing that there are appropriate times and places for lying, yelling, threatening, bribing, and saying "I told you so”

•Sending yourself to time-out—preferably with chocolate and/or your spouse

•Being completely amnesiac about the day's exasperating transgressions when you peek in your children's bedrooms at night and watch them sleep


Based on her popular Woman's Day and Parenting columns, Momfidence! explains how obsessing less and winging it more can keep you sane—and your kids healthy and happy. It's a hilarious look at "perfect motherhood” that cuts parents a long-overdue break by reminding us that we're not the amateurs here—we're all experts, too.

Paula Spencer writes the ?Momfidence!? column in Woman's Day magazine and is a longtime contributing editor to Parenting and Baby Talk. She is the coauthor, with Harvey Karp, M.D., of The Happiest Toddler on the Block. Spencer lives with her husband and four children in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.