Pamela E. Thompson

Surviving Mama Pamela E. Thompson

Surviving Mama is a stirring and thought-provoking self-help guide brimming with illustrative examples and empowering life lessons geared toward women from young adulthood to mid-life. It takes the reader on a journey through eight narratives of females sharing their experiences of their mothers' self-absorption, demanding ways, jealousies, belittling jabs, excessive worry, controlling nature, narrow-minded perspective, or perhaps even mental illness. Each of the eight chapters concludes with clinical and biblical analyses of what's happening in the relationship in addition to reflective questions designed to heighten the readers' self-awareness and healing. The last two chapters provide practical "how-to" instructions on navigating a difficult relationship with Mama honorably. It's important to note that the mothers featured in the book were not abusive but were, in fact, "good" mothers in the sense that the daughters were loved and appropriately clothed, fed, educated, protected and celebrated with birthday parties, Christmas gifts and the like. However, as the daughters have matured, they've realized stifling incompatibility in their mother-daughter relationships that greatly impact their lives in debilitating ways. They now look upon their mothers' character deficits as impossible to ignore. Readers are invited to share in the daughters' struggles to remain loving and embracing of their mothers who are as loving as they are imperfect. Surviving Mama is for women who want to mature in recognizing Mama's inappropriate and unproductive behaviors, to transcend them with enhanced boundary-setting, and to make peace in the relationship--even if Mama never "gets" it.