To Have and to Hold by Molly Millwood
A rocky start to book of the month club! (Slightly late with May) but better late than never!
Quick Overview
To Have and To Hold is book for the modern Mom. The author, Molly, who has several children herself writes the book she was looking for when struggling with the beginning portion of motherhood. She does a great job at describing the high and lows of modern relationships, and struggling with work-life balance. Along with being a mother, Molly is also a clinical psychologist and brings a level of expertise to her book that we all crave when looking for support and answers!
Samantha's Take Away
While there are many great parts of this book, I find myself continuing to think about one part in particular. She discusses a phenomenon where we focus so much on the unpleasant day-to-day tasks, it's not until we step back and see that all those unpleasant parental tasks are meaningful and that they make happy memories. For example, I get caught up in the difficulty with bedtime routines, temper tantrums, kids who won't falls asleep when I want them too, my oldest throwing up and catching it in my hands to avoid the couch (extra yuck); but when I look back at the last year I'm extremely satisfied with my life as parent and what we've accomplished. Despite how catastrophic the temper tantrums feel in the moment, they don't last that long and the little "pwease" and "tank you's" and surprise hugs are more. frequent and common in our house. Remembering to step back and look at the whole day/week/month or year has been helpful in getting through those tough moments!
Rating 8/10
You may have noticed that I changed the rating from 5 to 10, I found that I wanted to have a little more wiggle room! Though not every part of it was applicable to me, I definitely recommend this book and hope you enjoy it as well!
