An "awe-inspiring memior and self-help guide."

--Ebony

Lynn Toler was, if anything, an achiever. At thirty-three, after Harvard, Penn Law School, and a decade as a successful lawyer, she was elected to a municipal judgeship-a black woman in a mostly white community, in a district where the opposing party held a 5:1 majority. Once on the bench, responsible for adjudicating the countless minor squabbles and foibles to be found among her town's residents, she realized that the teachings of one person in particular helped her when dealing with those offenders. That person was her mother, a woman who possessed remarkable grace, strength, and simple insight.

Toni Toler's "rules" for life were forged in growing up the daughter of a poor teen mother, and through a long marriage to a husband who suffered mental illness and alcoholism. The story of how she transcended these circumstances, and raised Lynn and her equally successful sister, provide the grounding for Lynn's story of her life, her family, and her career. The worldview that shaped these rules is based on learning how to conquer anger and become immune to insult. Lynn shows how the mindset of "a black woman who knew how to make things work" taught her the power of knowing how to manage one's emotional business lessons that this book offers in wrenching stories written in spare and graceful prose. My Mother's Rules is an unforgettable memoir that will captivate readers with its illustrations of how to rise above the most difficult circumstances and find peace and success in life."

As the judge starring on the hit nationally syndicated television show Divorce Court, Lynn Toler witnesses, en masse, the thematic mistakes made in American marriages. She herself has also been wed for 22 years and has seen both the highs and lows of matrimony in her own marriage as well as the marriages of those close to her. While the national divorce rate hovers around the 50% threshold, there is a lot of chatter that marriage as we know it is an outdated institution--that we are too selfish, too unwilling to make sacrifices, and too misguided by elevated expectations of happiness to make marriage work. While these points may hold some validity, a lot of this chatter is nothing new. So what's causing so many divorces and, perhaps even more importantly, what are we to do about it if we want marriage to survive? Drawing from both her professional career and personal life, Toler sees that the biggest impediment to marriage these days is that couples decide to take the plunge based almost entirely on the most irrational criteria: falling in love. Making Marriage Work doesn't suggest that love has nothing to do with marriage at all; rather, Toler says that love by itself is simply not enough to make marriages survive. This book is a logical and simple guide to reintroducing some of the practicality of marriage that has leaked out of it over the years. Marriage, Toler says, is a job, and it needs to be treated like one. However, the makeup and consistency of this job has changed so much over the past few decades that the old rules no longer apply. Making Marriage Work is an updated manual to help get the job of marriage done right in this day and age. It suggests specific procedures that should be put in place to bridge the gap between head over heels and happily ever after. It explains how to phrase things in order to span the great hormonal divide men and women often fall into when trying to talk to one another. It also discusses the very new and real challenges to marriage created in a culture often overwhelmed by the emphasis on (and ability to attain) instant gratification. Replete with simple, no-nonsense rules, Divorce Court anecdotes, and stories about Judge Toler's own union, Making Marriage Work contains invaluable information couples can use today to secure their marital tomorrow.