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    Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!
    Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!
    Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!
    Audiobook7 hours

    Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!

    Written by Rachel Macy Stafford

    Narrated by Rachel Macy Stafford

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Discover the power, joy, and love of living a present, authentic, and intentional life despite a world full of distractions.

    If technology is the new addiction, then multitasking is the new marching order. We check our email while cooking dinner, send a text while bathing the kids, and spend more time looking into electronic screens than into the eyes of our loved ones. With our never-ending to-do lists and jam-packed schedules, it's no wonder we're distracted.

    But this isn't the way it has to be. 

    Special education teacher, New York Times bestselling author, and mother Rachel Macy Stafford says enough is enough. Tired of losing track of what matters most in life, Rachel began practicing simple strategies that enabled her to momentarily let go of largely meaningless distractions and engage in meaningful soul-to-soul connections.

    Finding balance doesn't mean giving up all technology forever. And it doesn't mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. In these pages, Rachel guides you through how to:

    • Acknowledge the cost of your distraction
    • Make purposeful connection with your family
    • Give your kids the gift of your undivided attention
    • Silence your inner critic
    • Let go of the guilt from past mistakes
    • And move forward with compassion and gratefulness

    So join Rachel and go hands-free. Discover what happens when you choose to open your heart--and your hands--to the possibilities of each God-given moment.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateOct 13, 2020
    ISBN9780310362654
    Author

    Rachel Macy Stafford

    Rachel Macy Stafford is a writer with one goal: to help people choose love as much as humanly possible. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Hands Free Mama, Hands Free Life, and Only Love Today; a certified special education teacher with a Master’s Degree in education; an in-demand speaker, and beloved blogger who inspires millions in her weekly blog posts at handsfreemama.comand through her supportive Facebook community, The Hands Free Revolution.  

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    Reviews for Hands Free Mama

    4/5

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    • 1/5
      I don't think I've ever finished a book and thought to myself: WOW this author needs serious therapy.

      But that's all I could think as I read Hands Free Mama.

      It’s a great premise: make an effort to eliminate unnecessary distractions to focus on who and what matters.

      As a mom who spends too much time on her phone, I thought reading this book might be good for me.

      Unfortunately, this book is awful. The fact that she has a big following is actually scary.

      First of all, the author goes on and on AND ON about how she "lost two years of her preschooler's childhood".

      Was she deployed? Serving a prison sentence? Hospitalized? Working full time in a different state? Detained by ICE? No. She was a stay-at-home mom who was volunteering a lot at church and at her other daughter's school (while bringing along her 2yr old child.) It is beyond dramatic to say she "lost" any years of her kids' lives and I think moms *actually separated* from their children would have a lot to teach this author.

      Her solution is to never do anything for anyone else or even herself (like sleep, do her hair, listen to the radio in the car, etc.) She is solely focused on her kids - counting their freckles, staring into their eyes as they fall asleep, reading books to them at 3am when they refuse to stay in bed, and protecting them from a tornado by sleeping in their beds as a storm rages outside.

      I get wanting to focus on your kid instead of the many distractions all around us every day. But good hygiene is not a distraction. It's a necessity. She literally says that she started wearing hats so that doing her hair doesn’t take away from family time. THEN she says that her preschooler drew a picture of her at school and told her teacher she wanted to be a mom who wears hats. I’m fairly certain that never happened and I’m also not here for mom guilt that’s so strong you forgo the two seconds it takes to comb your hair. NO.

      It is very unsettling how much this woman has her entire self-esteem wrapped up in her kids. It's an extraordinarily unhealthy relationship! She literally asks her kids (four and six years old, I think?) to describe her in three words. MULTIPLE times! And while she's happy they said "nice and pretty", she is wildly disappointed that they didn't say "fun". They described their dad as "fun" but not her. Oh, the agony!

      This book promotes serious mom guilt, neurotic preoccupation with creating the perfect childhood, and outright child worship. I love my kid. I’m obsessed with my kid. I’m heartbroken I haven’t been able to have more kids. However, my kid will not grow up thinking he is the center of my universe - because he isn’t. Do I care about him? More than I care about myself! Am I going to beat myself up over being too tired at 3am to read him a story when he wakes up in the middle of the night. No. Go back to sleep!

      I'm not even going to touch on the sole chapter when she finally crawls out of her kids' behinds long enough to google "childhood poverty". She was shocked by the Google image results. Absolutely DEVASTATED by a picture of a Black boy in another country clutching a broken tricycle like a prized possession. She decided to save this boy by sending shoeboxes of toiletries and toys. Unfortunately, she never heard from the boy in the picture, but she knows in her heart that he is out there benefiting from her selflessness. And apparently, her kids are in "awe" of their hero mom who both saves them from tornados AND solves poverty in third world countries.

      Ya'll... Save me from the Mommy bloggers who have never left suburbia. I cannot.

      I could rant all day about this book. I'm sure the author is very nice but she very much needs help. One star. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beautiful book to reflect on my life. I've been making huge changes. So grateful
    • 5/5
      What a fantastic eye opener! Practical advise to implement thanks!
    • 5/5
      I loved how she shared her personal journey. I felt extremely encouraged by the fruit she witnessed and the growth. My favorite part was on generosity with her kids and giving them time and attention to grow in their own way in that area.
    • 4/5
      This book is pretty good. Great message and great intention. After the 3rd or 4th chapter it becomes somewhat repetitive, but I guess that's the point, to really drill the Hands Free 'movement' so it sticks.