Parenting Short Takes: Entitlement, Teen Girl Promiscuity & the Cloth Diaper's Return
By Julianne J. Smith Oct 20, 2011This month, we see several titles advising parents to back off—or risk getting in the way of healthy development. Yet with books like Kerry Cohen's Dirty Little Secrets making headlines, it's difficult to see how less intervention is appropriate. David. H. Jensen's Parenting adds to the growing number of quality offerings on fatherhood. See also a review in next month's column of Rad Dad, an anthology from the eponymous zine.
Until then, I leave you with a gem from Shelley Klein's Out of the Mouths of Babes: Amy, age three, is asked, "Do you have a grandpa?" After some thought, she responds, "Oh, yes, we've got one of those at Granny's house." Kudos to my own dad, who, after five months of rehab, has learned to walk again. We are all excited to have you back at Granny's house!
Cohen, Kerry. Dirty Little Secrets: Breaking the Silence on Teenage Girls and Promiscuity. Sourcebooks. 2011. ISBN 9781402260698. pap. $14.99. CHILD REARING
Psychotherapist Cohen (Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity) offers this follow-up to her 2008 memoir, examining why girls today use casual sex to prove their worth. Cohen argues that our "notions today about...female desire are built on outdated patriarchal, religious notions" and that girls are just as entitled to sexual feelings and desires as boys. Cohen's goal is not to normalize promiscuity but rather to lift the shroud of silence and recognize that, while these feelings are normal, we must work together to ensure that teenage girls "stop harming themselves with their sexual behavior." Examining why, as she claims, female desire is so narcissistic, Cohen includes lots of first-person accounts from teenage girls, which makes for a sad and sometimes shocking read. This is a strong beginning to an important conversation. An important book for feminist and social science collections.
Eyre, Richard & Linda. The Entitlement Trap: How To Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership. Avery: Penguin Group (USA). 2011. ISBN 9781583334157. pap. $18. CHILD REARING
Husband-and-wife team and parents of nine, Linda and Richard Eyre (Teaching Your Children Values) are on target when they observe that, while children used to work for their parents, parents now work for their kids. Children are given license too early and responsibility too late, which "stifles children's initiative, encourages self-centeredness, and mutes their natural and healthy fear of consequences," essentially destroying the connection between effort and reward. The authors' plan for initiative-building responsibilities is commendable, especially within their larger goal of creating a family culture strong enough to "supersede and override all the other cultures" to which children are exposed. Unfortunately, their book sometimes takes on a religious tone aimed directly at intact, wealthy families. Further, the personal metaphors and stories are often irritating, essentially disengaging readers who might otherwise respond positively to their advice.
Gold, Claudia. Keeping Your Child in Mind: Overcoming Defiance, Tantrums, and Other Everyday Behavior Problems by Seeing the World Through Your Child's Eyes. Da Capo Lifelong. 2011. ISBN 9780738214856. pap. $15. CHILD REARING
Gold, a practicing behavioral pediatrician, believes that empathizing with your child is the real key to understanding and correcting behavioral problems. Guided by a philosophy of "how to be" (instead of "what to do"), which Gold refers to as "holding your child in mind," she feels that no matter a child's temperament or circumstances, what they most need is to have parents "recognize and empathize with [their] experience and help [them] contain strong emotions." Divided into sections by age, this book is probably most useful for parents of toddlers and up. Parents of older children with behavioral problems who are opposed to medication will find this advice useful as well. Gold's style is a bit officious, but attachment-parenting proponents will applaud her approach.
Jensen, David H. Parenting. Fortress. (Christian Explorations of Daily Living). 2011. ISBN 9780800698485. pap. $15. CHILD REARING
Jensen (theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary) writes with a reflective and scholarly style that lends itself well to merging parenting and religious topics. Written primarily by members of the Constructive Theology Workgroup, the titles in the "Christian Explorations of Daily Living" series "do not simply restate classical Christian traditions but question them as we learn from them." Jensen's title is divided into three sections, addressing common routines of middle-class American families, how to parent through faith while learning from Christian theologians (e.g., Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther), and themes to help contemporary Christian parents live out their calling through caring for children. A scholarly yet inviting book; recommended for academic, faith, and seminary collections.
Klein, Shelley. Out of the Mouths of Babes: Children Say the Funniest Things. Michael O'Mara, dist. by Trafalgar Square. Nov. 2011. ISBN 9781843174806. pap. $12.95. CHILD REARING
Klein (The Book of Senior Moments) offers a charming and fun collection of Bill Cosby-like sayings by children. These are addictive and gratifying excerpts from kids, ranging from word confusion (a teacher's "deadline" becomes a child's fear of returning to school in anticipation of the "dead lion"), to the requisite letters to God (did Thomas Edison steal God's light invention?), to the literalisms that abound with young children ("Teacher: Joe, how do you get dirty so quickly? Joe: I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are, Miss.") These are fun reads for all, whether one is the parent of a toddler, a grown child, or a goldfish. Heartwarming stuff, with perspective.
Pantley, Elizabeth. The No-Cry Picky Eater Solution: Gentle Ways To Encourage Your Child To Eat—and Eat Healthy. McGraw-Hill. (No Cry). 2011. ISBN 9780071744362. pap. $17. CHILD REARING
Pantley has covered just about every childhood irritant (otherwise known as a developmental milestone) in her "No-Cry" series: potty training, napping, sleeping, separation anxiety, and discipline approaches at latest count. Here, she tackles the picky eater, the kid who refuses anything but chicken nuggets, can't have the peas touching the carrots, or otherwise won't consume anything healthy unless it's bleeding ranch dressing. Pantley normalizes picky eating ("more than 65 percent of parents report ongoing problems convincing their children to eat vegetables") and sheds scientific light on its origins. Without expecting parents to earn their registered dietitian degree by the end of the book, she ably explains why a healthy diet is important and includes some kid-favorite recipes from best-selling cookbooks. Parents love the "No-Cry" series, and libraries would do well to add this to their collections.
Pickhardt, Carl. Boomerang Kids: A Revealing Look at Why So Many of Our Children Are Failing on Their Own, and How Parents Can Help. Sourcebooks. 2011. ISBN 9781402248580. pap. $14.99. CHILD REARING
According to practicing psychologist Pickhardt (The Connected Father), 85 percent of college graduates move back home (or "boomerang" back) with Mom and Dad after graduation, and his latest book is meant to help reverse that trend. He begins with an outline of the adolescent stages and the various problems parents typically encounter at each juncture (negative attitudes, experimentation, etc.). He advocates for parents to stop managing their older children and start mentoring them, by foregoing corrective discipline and emphasizing a coaching role instead. This trial independence will help postgrad kids handle the 11 most common challenges young people face, like managing increased freedom, unemployment, and broken romantic relationships. Pickhardt's style is a bit dry, but his advice is sound. Ideally, parents will read this before their adolescent boomerangs back into the house.
TeBos, Susan & Carissa Woodwyk. Before You Were Mine: Discovering Your Adopted Child's Lifestory. Zondervan. Nov. 2011. ISBN 9780310331032. pap. $14.99. CHILD REARING
Adoptee and adoptive mother TeBos takes a Christian perspective on the process of helping adopted children understand their birth circumstance by creating a Lifebook, "a story book that acknowledges, celebrates, explains, and honors the life of an adoptee prior to adoption." Transcending an adoption trip album, the Lifebook is more therapeutic in approach, aiming to act as a safe tool for a child to begin to discuss and question his beginnings, reduce birth parent fantasies, minimize uncertainty about his past, and normalize his birth story, among other tangible benefits. This is a workbook in format, with room for parents to take notes, which reduces its application to libraries. However, sample layouts and stories from other Lifebooks make this a valuable contribution, especially considering that not many titles have recently been printed on Lifebooks. Not to be sacrilegious, but this title would have been much more valuable without the constant and overwhelming amount of scripture included. Recommended nonetheless.
Wels, Kelly. Changing Diapers: The Hip Mom's Guide to Modern Cloth Diapering. Green Team Enterprises. 2011. ISBN 9780983562214. pap. $14.95. CHILD REARING
More planet-friendly and cheaper than modern-day disposables, cloth diapers are making a huge comeback. Despite naysayers, day-care practicalities, and really, really bad memories about your mother's diaper pail, blogger and cloth diaper-advocate Wels shows inclined parents how cloth diapering is both practical and easy. Not sold? Consider saving $2,000 per kid; consider that disposables contain both dioxin and sodium polyacrylate; consider that disposables are estimated to fill landfills with nearly 27.4 billion items per year, translating into nearly four million tons of waste. For those inclined, Wels covers everything from choosing cloth brands, conquering leaks, a step-by-step chapter on how to handle wet and soiled diapers, arguments for convincing Dad, and more. Complete with recommended brands, websites, and articles, Wels's book should be a go-to title for anyone contemplating cloth diapering. For all libraries.
