Does life feel like a barrage of spilled milk, dirty floors, and overwhelming monotony? Are you looking for your village momma? Our lives go through seasons and we don’t always have the help that we need. I learned that quickly living abroad as a first-time mom. But something that we do often have access to is books and they can give us so much wisdom, and comfort, and help us with the answers and inspiration we need.
In this post, I’m sharing a list of the best books for stay at home moms. Some of these I’ve read. Some are on my to-read list. I’ve chosen a variety of books from devotionals to inspire our walk with the Lord to homemaking help to parenting advice.
There is a lot of wisdom here even just from the quotes I’ve shared but you feel like you don’t have time to read as a busy stay at home mom I know the struggle and it’s real. Finding time to read is challenging but I have tips I’ve learned for you here: How To Read More Books As A Busy Mom. So check out this list of best books for stay at home moms then go read that post.
Best Books for Stay at Home Moms
So here are some of the best books for stay at home moms that will make you laugh and make you cry and keep you going when you need to in no particular order.
If you are interested in a book you can click on the title to view and buy on Amazon using my affiliate links. In doing so you are helping support all the free content on this blog. Thank you.
Daring Greatly, Brené Brown
Daring Greatly explores the power of vulnerability and how it can lead to courage and personal growth. This is a great book if you want to feel inspired.
I read this one before I was a mom and it impacted me. It’s one I want to read again. As an introvert mom being vulnerable is hard for me but it is something that I want to model for our daughter.
Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
I want our daughter to know that she can show up with courage and show up for others when they need courage.
In the intro to Daring Greatly Brene Brown shares an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech Citizenship in a Republic about the Man in the Arena.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…
Theodore Roosevelt
That has been an encouragement to me over the years. So often people want to give advice or criticize you when they don’t have the experience or they are not doing anything themselves. We don’t have to listen because they are not in the arena.
As a mom, this encourages me to know that I can listen to advice as needed but I need to prayerfully decide what is best for our home and family. Advice from those not in the arena can be weighed but does not have to be listened to if it is not sound or does not work for us.
I pray to teach our daughter that it is better to work and try and fail and learn than to sit on the sidelines doing nothing.
The 5 Love Languages of Children, Gary Chapman
I read this one in college when I was earning my degree in Early Childhood Education. This book explores the concept of 5 different love languages and how we can speak each to our children. We tend to love in the language that resonates most with us but if our child has a different love language they may not feel our love fully.
By learning practical tips to speak our child’s love language we can develop deeper connections that last a lifetime while making our children feel more secure. There are some great tips for loving our children but also nuggets of parenting wisdom about being present and how we conduct our households.
Some quotes from the book:
You may truly love your child, but unless she feels it—she will not feel loved.
Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages of Children
The key to quality time is found in the values and priorities you as parents determine to cherish and implement in your home.
Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages of Children
Don’t be a victim of the urgent. In the long run, much of what seems so pressing right now won’t even matter. What you do with your children will matter forever.
Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages of Children
The Joy of Missing Out, Tonya Dalton
Provides strategies for simplifying your life, focusing on what matters most, and finding joy in the process.
This is one that is on my to-read list as I love all things productivity with a lean towards minimalism. I’m a big believer that we may not be able to do everything but we can do a lot with focus and the right systems. The author Tonya Dalton has been named the Female Entrepreneur to Watch for the state of North Carolina which is my home state. I’m looking forward to reading this one when I finish my current read which is next on the list.
There are different ways we can manage our daily schedule to and daily life to create more space and have a simplified life.
We have to stop the glorification of busy. We need to change our mindset and redefine what it means to be productive. Productivity is not about doing more, it’s doing what’s most important. We need to stop trying to get more done and instead reset our focus on our own priorities. When we do that, our ideal lives can become our real, everyday lives.
Tonya Dalton, The Joy of Missing Out
Let me lay a little tough love on you right now. You can choose or let others choose for you. The choice is really yours. Not making a choice is a choice. But so many of us have forgotten that we have a choice—it’s a case of learned helplessness. Have you ever experienced that feeling of having no control over your day? As if your world is so rigid and made up of so many rules you don’t really get to choose the life you live? That, my friend, is learned helplessness. That feeling I was experiencing? Of being stuck (and the fact that I wanted to give up and not even think about how empty I felt)? That was my own learned helplessness rearing its ugly head.
Tonya Dalton, The Joy of Missing Out
Grace Based Discipline, Karis Kimmel Murray
Tagline: How to Be at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst
We’re all about Grace here at Grace Filled Mom so I had to add this one to the list. I think so many of us struggle with discipline for our children as parents. We want to be kind but still train up our children in the way they should go. We want to help our own children make the right choice in every decision and this book looks like it has effective tips.
I have this one on my reading very soon list.
Grace helps us base the rules of our home on love and have an outward-focused relationship with God and others.
Karis Kimmel Murray, Grace Based Discipline
our homes are laboratories for the gospel. How we parent, and how we discipline, will be evidence that will either support or disprove whether the gospel is the good news we all claim.
Karis Kimmel Murray, Grace Based Discipline
Our kids will know that grace works as they see it work in us. They will trust that the gospel transforms if they watch it transform us.
Karis Kimmel Murray, Grace Based Discipline
More than anything, we’ve got to get out of our own way and let God parent our children through us. That’s how faith will come alive in our kids.
Karis Kimmel Murray, Grace Based Discipline
It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa TerKeurst
I’m in the middle of reading this one which feels like part friend chat, part mentorship, and part Bible Study. If you are not familiar with Lysa she is a New York Times bestselling author of many books and president of Proverbs 31 ministries.
I had this book on my Kindle for a while before I started to read it but as always the Lord brought it back into my awareness at the right time. If you have experienced disappointments and feel like life was just not supposed to be this way then it may be the right time for you to pick up this read too. It’s been a great read so far and important for my mental health.
Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.
Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way. In the quietness of all that doesn’t feel right, this truth does.
Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.
Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
God’s Word is the Truth. And His Truth says you are a holy and dearly loved child of your heavenly Father. You are wonderfully made. You are a treasure. You are beautiful. You are fully known by Him and lavishly loved by Him. You are chosen. You are special. You are set apart. No matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, these words of God are true about you.
Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
God doesn’t want you or me to suffer. But He will allow it in doses to increase our trust. Our pain and suffering isn’t to hurt us. It’s to save us. To save us from a life where we are self-reliant, self-satisfied, self -absorbed, and set up for the greatest pain of all . . . separation from God.
Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
This is an older one that I just have not gotten around to yet but it is on my list. This is the tenth-anniversary edition. You know busy mom life. But who doesn’t want more happiness after all?
The author Gretchen Rubin apparently had an epiphany on a bus one rainy day. I’ve been on those city buses in the rain and it can definitely put you in a contemplative state. She realized that the years are short and it was time to pursue happiness. And thus the happiness project began.
While I am completely convinced that true happiness comes from our relationship with our Creator and following His ways I know there are many practical things we can do day to day to increase happiness.
I am curious to read the tips and insights.
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
It’s about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.
Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.
Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families, Hal Elrod
I read Miracle Morning the original edition and got so many great insights about productivity and how to have a better day. So I have put this edition specifically for parents and families on my to-read list since I have become a mom.
The Miracle Morning Books are Based on what author Hal Elrod calls The Life S.A.V.E.R.S. which stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing. I applied these to my life with the Bible when I read the original edition of this book. Silence was having silent time to listen to the Lord. I used Biblical affirmations through verses about who God says we are. For visualization, I would ask God to help me see the vision He had for our family. The exercise was quick movement in the morning, reading was Bible verses or a devotional, and scribing was writing in my prayer journal. It’s a great daily routine.
This is a routine I would like to get back to so I’m curious what the parenting edition has to say.
It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. —Joyce Maynard, American novelist and journalist
Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families
where you are is a result of who you were, where you go depends entirely on the person you choose to be from this moment forward.
Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families
While mediocre parents complain often but do nothing to improve their situations, successful parents look at their own individual role in every situation and analyze how they could be better. They find the right resources, and more importantly, they intentionally seek to acquire the skills necessary to build healthy family relationships that are so important in raising children.
Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families
The Mom Factor, Henry Cloud and John Townsend
This book delves into the impact of our relationships with our mothers and offers insights into how to overcome challenges and grow as individuals.
I haven’t read this one yet but I have been a fan of Cloud and Townsend books since I read Boundaries in I think High School.
The relationship we had and have with our own mothers can greatly impact how we are as mothers. This book is about understanding, healing, and forgiveness to enable us to be the best mothers we can be.
A child cannot tolerate a mother’s anger. She either splits from the relationship, or she becomes terrified. Neither alternative promotes freedom and individuality. Independence, as we mentioned above, needs to be fostered, not attacked by mother. She has the power to send one of two messages: “Your individuality is loved,” or “Your individuality is my enemy, and I will destroy it.” A child cannot stand up to that kind of attack and develop in the way that she needs to.
Henry Cloud, The Mom Factor
relationships. We always have some responsibility in choosing love or isolation, life or death, light or darkness, and truth or deception. The older we are, the more responsibility we bear. We need to embrace that responsibility and not be afraid of the task. How we conduct our lives is our affair. The buck truly does stop with us. We must stop denying our issues and blaming mom, God, circumstances, or others. We must begin the long journey of repair for ourselves.
Henry Cloud, The Mom Factor
She is the laboratory for the child to become an adult, and it takes its toll on her. The good mother gets her needs for love, affection, and respect met by God and the safe people in her life. Only in this way can she altruistically and sacrificially do the best thing for the child, who desperately needs safe passage toward adulthood.
Henry Cloud, The Mom Factor
The Minimalist Way, Erica Layne
This one is on my Kindle ready to go after I finish up my current reads. Having moved abroad with just a couple of suitcases a few years ago I have learned how fast we can reaccumulate things.
As a busy work-from-home momma I know the importance of simplifying as much as we can to make space for the things in our lives that are really important. I think we can all use more clarity and peace.
too many of us are burdened by our belongings, our commitments, our calendars, and our mental loads. In this state, we can’t slow down and enjoy our lives because we’re too busy managing them.
Erica Layne, The Minimalist Way
I began fiercely protecting our family time—our adventures to the beach, our Saturday hikes, our outings to the local airport to watch the small planes land. It didn’t happen all at once, but in a thousand ways, minimalism was changing my life for the better.
Erica Layne, The Minimalist Way
Bottom line: If our lives are burdened with clutter, we’re giving the best of ourselves away to the things that matter least.
Erica Layne, The Minimalist Way
Cook Once, Eat All Week, Cassy Joy Garcia
This is on my to-read list because I love the idea of preparing ahead for meals. I like the idea of batch cooking rather than meal prepping as I am not someone who likes eating the same thing for days in a row.
As a mom Cassy Joy knows what it is like trying to come up with fresh meals and dinners all the time. But she didn’t get along with traditional meal prepping either. She presents a concept of batch cooking a vegetable, starch, and protein each week to make a variety of meals. Better meals are on my to-do list for sure. This looks like a wealth of advice.
Dawn From The Minimal Mom has a video about it. If you eat vegetarian meals like our family you can swap out the proteins for vegetarian sources.
If you are interested in meal ideas check out:
Easy And Healthy Meal Ideas For Dinner Your Toddler Will Love
Easy And Fun Weekly Family Meal Dinner Theme Ideas
Are you finding this list of best books for stay at home moms helpful? Share it with a mom!
The Lifegiving Home, Sally Clarkson
Our homes are not just a place to eat and sleep though shelter is important. They can be a place that gives life to each family member. A place where traditions are started and memories are made and time is cherished.
This mother-and-daughter team offers advice to other mothers on how we can make our homes a place of life. Family life is very important to me as a working mom without a lot of time. This looks like a practical guide for stay-at-home mothers and an encouraging book.
Every day in each inch of space, each rhythm of time, each practice of love, we have the chance to join God in coming home, in living so that we make a home of this broken and beautiful world all over again. Love is enfleshed in the meals we make, the rooms we fill, the spaces in which we live and breathe and have our being.
Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home
Home is to be a safe place, a refuge for all who enter, a protection from the harm and storms of the world. Yet often or even daily we open our doors — usually via television or the internet — to ideas and images that can damage our faith, abuse our hearts and minds, sear our psyches, and tear apart our peace. Home should be a place where, behind its doors, one should expect to find protection and safety from all the harms of life, including voices that do not speak truth or wisdom. Only the foolish would invite just anyone to enter the door of their home.
Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home
As I reflect back on all of the years of our family’s life together, what I remember best is not the mountains of dirty dishes and pots and pans and socks left on the floor and piles of laundry. I reflect instead on precious times shared with Clay, the kids, and those we welcomed into our home—snuggling on the couch together, nursing babies and rocking them to sleep, sharing movies and huge bowls of popcorn, comforting children after a nightmare, and all those heartfelt kisses and cards that said “I love you!
Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home
The Better Mom Devotional, Ruth Schwenk
I did not want to end this list of best books for stay at home moms without a devotional that is on my to-read list because we moms need all the spiritual strength that we can get. This devotional offers daily encouragement and inspiration for moms seeking to grow spiritually while navigating the challenges of motherhood.
And of course, don’t forget the Bible. It lands at the top of any book list for me. The Word that is truly life.
Anything you would add to this list of books? Let me know in the comments.
And of course, don’t forget the Bible. It lands at the top of any book list for me. The Word that is truly life.
I hope this list of the best books for stay at home moms inspires you to grow and love to the best of your ability. As we learn to let go of unrealistic expectations we truly can have a rich life and a happy life as stay-at-home parents. As a stay at home, work from home mom myself I know the challenges but also the beauty and privilege. Let’s look for practical ways to make the life of a stay-at-home mom the good life. Let’s work to raise healthy children, and manage our household chores with more ease, and be the best version of mom that we can be. With special attention, lots of prayer, and perhaps some reading time we can do it. May we have grace-filled homes!
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