Popular Blogger Releases Highly Anticipated Books on Christian Homemaking

Readers of Leila Lawler’s popular blog Like Mother, Like Daughter found her advice so helpful that they asked her to write a book. The result is a three-volume keepsake set, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life. 

This much-anticipated “compendium of domestic things” consists of three-volumes subtitled — “Home culture,” “Education,” and “Housekeeping” — with a myriad of topics in easy-to-reference manageable chapters. Illustrated by her daughter, Deirdre Folley, it is the perfect gift for young women leaving home for the first time, new brides, or young mothers. 

Speaking of the book, Lawler shared, “I want to draw you in to my world where we can have a cup of tea, not mind that things are not perfect, and have a chat about how to do things and why.”  

Coming from a secular humanist background, Lawler is a convert to Catholicism. She spent decades developing ideas on what it means to be a woman and the essence of true feminism. These beautiful keepsake books begin with “Home Culture,” discussing the dignity of women in chapters, such as “The Gift of Womanhood,” and “On Womanhood: Receiving in Order to Give.” She invites readers to embrace true femininity. 

Her “kitchen sink philosophy” shines through an array of topics on the essentials of establishing a home. In a straightforward way, Lawler offers proficient and systematic advice. She explains how to destruction-proof your family, attain peace as a stay at home mom, feel beautiful after having a baby, and raise happy, healthy children at every stage of development.

These books offer wisdom on teaching the faith in each liturgical season and developing your own homeschooling curriculum, with goal planning. In “Education,” Lawler provides practical reflections on teaching older children with little ones around and forming them to learn independently to navigate our world.

She also offers strategies on teaching core subjects, as well as religion and morality, and evaluating children’s literature. Also featured are a well-referenced table of contents, recommended book lists, and resources for various age levels.

Lawler’s hope is that her experience will help save women time in having to “reinvent the wheel.” In “Housekeeping,” her practical tips on managing domestic responsibilities include: caring for the house, creating a frugal grocery list, preparing meals, conquering the mountains of laundry created by large families, and how to involve children with certain cleaning tasks. 

This faith-filled, balanced approach incorporates Lawler’s suggestions on organization, whether creating to-do lists or arranging closets for tidiness and personal information for accessibility. Additionally, she discusses living frugally on one income, things that are worse than debt, and sharing a bank account.

Creating order in a home is about more than organization — it’s also about harmony. Order “has to do with the rhythms of the day, the week, the seasons, and the year; there is the rhythm of memory, of history and its commemoration.” Lawler wrote the book to “maintain the collective memory” because, in the words of her daughter Rosie, “it’s important.” For culture to survive, it must be passed on.

Throughout the book, Lawler incorporates relevant quotations from Catholic saints, like Teresa of Avila, or philosophers like G.K. Chesterton. 

Scott Hahn wrote of Lawler’s book The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home: “How I wish I’d had this book when I first became a Catholic… This is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen. It is inspiring yet practical, realistic yet revolutionary. If one book has the potential to transform the Catholic family (and society), this is it.” 

Women will exude similar sentiments in reading The Summa Domestica.

Members of the media may send an email to Sophia Institute Press’ Publicity Coordinator at kvanuden@SophiaInstitute.com to receive a physical or digital copy of The Summa Domestica or to schedule an interview with the author, Leila Lawler.