Mama's Got a Fake I.D.

I have got to tell you about a new book that I am SO excited about. I started it and immediately began looking for the hidden camera because she was QUOTING a conversation I'd had only hours before. I ate it up as quickly as I usually consume fiction.

Formula for identity loss:

1. Take one multifaceted, intriguing human being.

2. Bless her with a child.

3. Mix with today’s cultural assumptions.

4. Add the demands of motherhood.

5. Presto! All identity except Mom disappears.

For every woman wondering what happened to the unique combination of gifts and abilities she was known for before kids came along, Caryn Dahlstrand Rivedeneira has good news: in Mama’s Got a Fake I.D., Rivedeneira helps moms reclaim their full identity as creative beings, gifted professionals and volunteers, loving friends, children of God—and mothers.

This inspiring and practical guide shows women how to break free from false guilt, learn a new language to express who they really are, and follow God’s lead in sharing their true self with others. After all, motherhood doesn’t have to mean losing one’s identity. Instead, being a mom makes it possible for a woman to discover a more complete identity as the person God made her to be.

I intend to go through this book more thoroughly with a good friend and then I hope to go through it again with a "safe" group of friends. I think it is something that many, many women would do well to read and go through with others they'd like to know better. And by better, I mean knowing more deeply than the mom persona.

This book is for all of those "lonely" women whose blogs I read. The ones that ache because they are missing the close relationships and can't even figure out why. Finally someone wrote it down.

The former managing editor of Marriage Partnership and Christian Parenting Today, Caryn Dahlstrand Rivedeneira has been a trusted voice writing and speaking to women for more than a decade. Today she is the managing editor of GiftedForLeadership.com, an online community for Christian women in leadership. Rivadeneira works from home in the Chicago suburbs, where she lives with her husband and their three children.