Advice Only a Mother Can Give: Writing Books of Guidance for All Children

Take it from Mom; she knows best — “You probably should bring a jacket,” or “Don’t chew with your mouth open.” As an adult, you will find yourself speaking these same fateful sayings to your children, while giving the “I mean it” face when they refuse.

The words of a mother are ones that each of us carries into life with a sense of apprehension at first, but gratefulness when the advice turns out to be needed.

Many mothers like you may wish to impart these pearls of maternal wisdom in a published book for not just your sons and daughters, but also to readers everywhere.

Before you go about printing a motherly advice book, take the time to consider the kind of content and tone your manuscript will carry and how readers will receive it.

What will be most helpful is for the book to maintain a good balance between generality and intimacy in content; a common ground where anecdotes and advice are personal but embody a sense of usefulness to non-related readers as well. This will prevent readers from feeling they are intruding into a private dialogue between a mother and child.

As you keep this idea of material balance in mind, you can then determine what stories to include and/or what advice you most want to convey. Do you wish to focus more on the big “firsts” in your child’s life, or do you want to concentrate on advice to prepare them for college and career? You might even consider including advice for when your son or daughter becomes a parent and needs that motherly insight into how to bring up his or her child properly.

This idea of balance may also assist in determining whether to include generational advice from your own mother/grandmother/female relative, deciding whether the gap in relational translation may be too large of a stumbling block in understanding for readers.

While writing, keep the tone of the book as less authoritative and more compassionate so readers feel the book is a meaningful one-on-one with Mom and not a lecture.

Last, but not least, is the idea of including photographs or pictures within the pages of the book. Although this will add more to the visualization of your advice points, make sure that readers come away remembering most the advice given and not the photos/pictures.

For this month of celebrating mothers, pass on the greatest gift a mother can give, outside of birth, by writing a book of motherly advice. You never know who will need that reassuring word of comfort and touching story to gain new hope during a challenging season of life.

For all mothers, thank you all for being blessings from God for all of us!