Read This: Momma Zen

Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller

As the book jacket promises, Momma Zen offers practical wisdom about how to simply be while navigating the joys and challenges of parenting. Miller’s advice illustrates a way to be mindful as a parent, to live in the present moment whether that moment is full of joy or frustration and to give yourself permission to be human at the same time that you’re trying to be the perfect parent (an impossible task!) with this new beautiful human in your care.

Momma Zen covers a period from Miller’s pregnancy through early elementary school in the life of Miller’s daughter so I’d recommend this books to readers with young children. I’ve read it twice now, once when my son was less than six months old and again when he was two and a half. Miller’s writing is beautiful and many pages in my copy are dog-eared because I want to refer back not only to the ideas she’s expressing, but to the language she’s using to express them. Even though Miller and I have very different parenting philosophies and practices, both times I’ve read Momma Zen I have been given a lens with which to view my child and myself that has been helpful and for which I feel very grateful.

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