Parenting, Inc. by Pamela Paul Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Parenting, Inc.
Book Review: Aha! Moment for Grandma
Summary: 5 Stars
Now i get it! This book is a must-read for grandparents who have been observing strange things going on in the world of parenting. Observation alone can be confusing and even demoralizing. This book has allowed me to understand the roots of seemingly bizarre, ever well meaning, definitely extravagant, behavior in my children's generation.
The easiest explanation for the seemingly ubiquitous hysteria of parents of young children is that they have all lost their minds....but now I get it! This book is a wonderful, intelligent examination of the pressures and temptations that distort good sense and lead normally sane and smart people to reach into their pocketbooks for all kinds of expensive goods and services that never existed before or were free or relatively cheap. Yikes.
If insight can help young parents resist French lessons for their fetuses or thousand dollar strollers, this book is the perfect gift to get into their hands, quickly, before the baby is born, while they have time to read it. For the grandparents, also a perfect book, because understanding is always a good thing.
Book Review: Chose your role models carefully
Summary: 5 Stars
I think author Pamela Paul was brave to go up against "Big Baby" (her phrase not mine) and argue against Baby Einstein or buying fancy car seats, for example. Surely some people (the grandparents of her own tots perhaps) would raise an eyebrow at that.
Too many people in our society spend money without thinking. American household savings rates, around 15% in 1980, are now basically 0. What are people going to do when it's time to spend $20,000 on Kindergarten? If they heed this book, the answer will be "relax". You can raise kids better by ignoring the people who tell you to spend more. It fits with the (better raised) of my friends' children, anyway.
Book Review: Get past the intro...
Summary: 4 Stars
This book came to me highly recommended, and frankly - I agree with its title, subtitle and all of the precepts it puts forth. I was very much looking forward to seeing what the authoress had to say.
So I was nearly shocked into dropping it when, out of the gate, Pamela Paul chose Baby Sign Language as her whipping boy. Just how much further she could have missed the mark on this topic, I do not know.
As a parent of two boys under four, we found BSL to be an invaluable tool for understanding, communication, and above all avoidance of frustration.
A baby has more going on in his or her brain than he can possibly express. Without proper control over vocalization, all he can do to get his wishes across to his parent is to cry or flail.
Instead, giving your baby the tools she needs to communicate is a priceless and amazing gift. You do not need to spend hundreds of dollars on this. Classes are optional - it needs only be between you and your infant. You can get a secondhand book with basic signs for under ten dollars. In fact, MAKE UP YOUR OWN if nothing else! ("hungry" "thirsty" "tired" "pick me up" "diaper" and "pain" are good starters) The important thing is that you and she understand each other, not that she's got proper grammar.
In fact, the first time your baby TELLS you that she's HUNGRY, instead of crying while you ineffectually ask "Are you cold? Hot? Tired? Wet? Want a toy?" you will realize just how valuable this is.
Do not treat it as Pamela Paul apparently did - it is not a status symbol, checkbox for a baby's resume, or fad for Brooklyn yuppies.
It is, however, a wonderful step toward connecting with your baby, and letting him feel safe in the knowledge that (a) he has a voice, and (b) mommy and daddy actually hear him, and are there to take care of him.
Rob
Book Review: Parenting Gone Crazy
Summary: 3 Stars
Anyone who has been a parent for more than a few years has probably noticed a change in style among many of today's new parents: a more anxious, urgent, competitive, and consumptive style. For example, in my neighborhood a large number of after-school tutoring centers have sprung up. They seem to do a brisk business. Parenting, Inc., by Pamela Paul, explores the big business that parenting has become and how that business both results from and contributes to the heightened anxieties of today's parents.
In countless ways parents seek the health, safety, comfort, happiness, and positive development of their children. According to Ms. Paul, this understandable impulse has lost all sense of proportion in America. She describes an explosion of baby stores and internet merchants that sell tens of thousands of products to new parents. Not just normal necessities. But extravagances like stroller speedometers, child-size toilet paper, infant perfumes, and baby monitoring systems that employ multiple infrared cameras and wireless technology. She also describes a growing designer aesthetic for baby gear: $55 pacifiers, $195 children's jeans, $900 high chairs, $700 crib mattresses, and a $1500 diaper bag.
For parents who want to give their children an academic head start, there are in-utero educational programs, infant flash cards, infant and toddler reading and foreign language instruction, music appreciation programs, and countless educational DVDs. Instead of the traditional play date or visit to the playground, parents can now enroll their children in junior country clubs, various infant and toddler classes, and countless other structured activities. And the average American child is drowning in toys. According to Ms. Paul, the U.S. has 4% of the world's children, but 40% of its toys.
Parent "outsourcing" businesses are also booming. For expectant mothers there are prenatal personal trainers, masseuses, and nutritionists. For childbirth itself there are childbirth coaches and doulas. For the period immediately following childbirth, there are lactation consultants, baby nurses, coaches, and mother's group leaders. And as the need arises, there are shopping services, meal preparation services, professional home baby proofers, experts that teach older siblings how to adjust to a new baby, psychologists for child and parent, tantrum tamers, nannies, nanny surveillance services, "momcierges," delousers, birthday party planners, kiddie taxi services... And numerous other "experts" who now perform tasks that were once performed by parents themselves.
I have two criticisms of this book. First, it is almost entirely anecdotal. Every chapter is a string of anecdotes, interviews, and opinions. I found this format tiring and I began to get the feeling that generalizations were being made about a whole generation of parents that are probably true for only a wealthy subset of them. Second, the book would have been more interesting if it contained more analysis of the motivations and consequences of the parental behavior it describes.
Ms. Paul touches briefly on various parental motivations, but she does not delve deeply into any of them. She suggests that parenting, like everything else in our culture, is becoming increasingly consumerist, that parents use their children to exhibit conspicuous consumption, that parents want their children to excel because their success reflects well on them as parents, and that first-time older parents often try to fit children around their lifestyle rather than change their lifestyle to accommodate children. However, she also suggests that many parents want to be good parents, but are terribly pressed for time, feel guilty about how little time they spend with their children, are anxious about their children's development, and are racked by self-doubt (possibly a result of ever increasing reliance on specialists and loss of traditional communities through which parenting skills are transmitted). All of these things add up to vulnerability to the parenting industry's advertising pitches.
Ms. Paul also mentions some of the consequences of over-anxious, over-structured, and materialistic child rearing. She suggests that we're creating a generation of kids who don't know what to do when left to their own devices. She says we're teaching instant gratification, but not problem solving, coping with frustration, or self-discipline. She questions whether it makes sense to try to make children happy all the time because it's when they're unhappy that they learn what they need to do to be content. She suggests that children learn primarily through play and interactions with others. And she opines that much of the stuff of today's parenting is touted as having educational or other benefits, but it really just takes the place of interactions between children and their parents.
If these ideas had been further developed, the book would have been more interesting, and probably more helpful to parents. Nevertheless, this is an interesting book that tackles an important topic and offers many good observations and insights.
Book Review: Parenting, Inc
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book from the perspective of a first-time grandfather of a toddler. I expected a number of changes in the art, science, and practice of parenting in the generation since I was a parent. I fully expected advances in pediatrics, the infrastructure of the child care system, and the application of technology to child care goods and services. I was not
prepared to read the author's description of the unleashing of frenetic consumerism on the children or on the development of narrow specialists in a field that was once considered as part of normal parenting skills. After reading this seminal expose I indulged in a touch of macabre by visiting the website that offered the thousand dollar BUGABOO stroller.
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